Odds and Ends

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Over the last week, the Hawks made a couple of rumored signings official. As mentioned below, the Hawks signed Jack Skille to a 1 year, $600K contract. It appears that Skille will get his opportunity to make a name for himself in the NHL this upcoming season. While many Hawks fans would rather have Buff, Versteeg or Ladd in that spot, some of the Rockford kids are going to get their shot in 2010-11 to prove their worth and that might have some value in itself. This is probably Skille’s last chance with the Hawks, so hopefully he takes advantage of it.

The Hawks also announced the signing of Brian Bickell to a 3 year, $1.625M deal ($541K cap hit). Good job again by Stan on this contract as Bickell has been a contributor in each of the opportunities he’s been up with Chicago. Queneville is a fan of Bickell as well as he’s mentioned many times in the press, and even rewarded him with a few games up on the Toews and Kane line during the season. Most likely we’re going to see Bickell manning the LW on the 4th line in 2010-11.

The Blackhawks also signed former New York Rangers first round pick Hugh Jessiman. Jessiman has some size as he measures in at 6’6” and 231 pounds. He’s bounced around the AHL the last couple of years and it’s most likely that this is a signing for Rockford. Power forwards take a longer time to develop and I’m probably reaching, but maybe he’s a late bloomer. At 1 year at $500K on a two-way contract, it’s definitely worth the risk in finding out.

Nick Leddy, the 16th overall pick in the 2009 NHL Entry Draft (by Minnesota) also has come to terms with the Blackhawks on a 3 year entry level contract. Leddy was acquired in the mid-season trade that saw Cam Barker traded to Minnesota for Leddy and Kim Johnsson. During his freshman year, Leddy played in all situations at the University of Minnesota. During Prospect Camp a couple weeks ago, Leddy turned some heads with his effortless skating and overall solid play.

Why pull Leddy from college early if you’re the Hawks? That seems to be the million dollar question. For the last couple of years those in the know have speculated that NHL GMs haven’t been too impressed with prospect development at the University of Minnesota. This could be a factor into the signing. Perhaps the Hawks feel it’s better for Leddy’s development to be in the AHL, or perhaps play one year in the WHL (Tri-Cities holds his WHL rights and he has the option to play there). Most likely, Leddy will play 2010-11 in Rockford and probably another year after that. But it is possible that Leddy will be on the Hawks roster sooner than a lot of people thought.

Finally, today is the day that Antii Niemi’s arbitration hearing took place. It appeared that Niemi’s camp was not going to budge on their rumored demands of $4M so no deal was agreed to before the hearing. The arbitrator has 48 hours to make their decision, and then from that point the Hawks will have 48 hours to decide whether they accept the deal, or walk away. Another option the Hawks have is to accept the deal and then trade Niemi if there is interest. That remains to be seen.

With all of the minor tweaking done by the Hawks, they can probably stomach a cap hit of close to $3M for Niemi if they so choose. This might mean starting with 20 skaters on the opening night roster, but it is an option. Anything more than that, and the Hawks will walk away and sign either Marty Turco or Jose Theodore as a one year stop gap. My personal plan would be to sign either of those two to a $1.5-2M contract, save the additional cap space and if whomever you sign craps the bed during the year, you have a little bit of wiggle room at the trade deadline to acquire a better goaltender.

The Hawks have done well here to not give in to Niemi’s (or his agent Bill Zito’s demands). Bowman has done everything he reasonably could to free up more dollars to give to Niemi. It appears that wasn’t enough for Zito. Bottom line, if to create more room so Niemi can make $4M you have to trade Patrick Sharp or David Bolland, the correct response is thank you Antii for your performance last year, but we can’t do that and best of luck to you. That, and to tell Bill Zito to go F himself too.

We’ll see what the arbitrator decides here in the next day or two.