(c) Associated Press
Jordan Hendry is officially back in the fold for 2010-11
It’s summer which means it’s time to BBQ, get outside and enjoy seeing girls with less clothing on than you would in winter. However, August is also the dog days of the sports season unless you’re into baseball, and generally that’s not the case for me until late September. So for us hockey junkies, our minds keep thinking ahead to October and the start of the 2010-11 NHL season. Well, that, and continuing to celebrate the Stanley Cup win if you’re a Hawks fan.
In minor, expected news, the Blackhawks have re-signed Jordan Hendry to a 1 year, $600K contract, per capgeek.com. Hendry has been with the Hawks for a couple of years now and is your average NHL 6th or 7th defenceman. Which is pretty much where he’s going to slot for the Hawks in this coming year.
With that signing, the pieces are pretty much in place when it comes to projecting the 2010-11 Chicago Blackhawks roster. There’s still a couple of spots up from grabs, and there may still be one or two depth signings by Stan Bowman. These depth signings would most likely be a 3rd pairing defenceman who can kill penalties and has some sandpaper to him, and possibly a veteran defensive minded forward. If Bowman only signs one player, the priority should be a 5th defenceman who fits that description above. Some possibilities are Mike Mottau, Jay McKee or Shane Hnidy.
After the signing of Marty Turco for the bargain price of $1.3M, the Hawks have some flexibility in how they handle the 2010-11 season from a cap standpoint. They can choose to use the extra cap space now to fill out the roster before the season starts. Or they could save some of the cap space for the trade deadline.
Regarding the trade deadline, here’s the quick math. Assuming a trade deadline of Wednesday, March 2nd, if a team were to trade for a player on the deadline, they’d only have to pay him for 40 days the rest of the year. There are 193 days (or so) in the NHL season. In other words, you’d only be paying for roughly 20% of the player’s contract that you pick up. What does this mean in terms of cap space? In essence, every $100K in cap space you have at the deadline is worth $500K in annual cap hit for the player. For example, say you want to pick up Andrew Ladd at the deadline (we can only dream). His cap hit is $2.35M. If you traded for Ladd at the deadline, you’d only need $500K in cap space at the deadline to acquire him and fit under the cap.
I’m of the opinion that the Hawks should try to save as much cap space for the trade deadline as possible. While the Hawks could use another defensive minded, veteran forward, why pay this forward $1.5M for the entire year? Give the kids a chance early on, and make a trade at the deadline if you need to. That way you’re only paying $300K on your cap for this veteran. The Hawks have a plethora of picks and prospects they can deal if need be.
Another debate will be whether or not the Hawks carry a 21 or 22 man roster. I’m of the opinion that you go with 21 for the most part. Why? A couple of reasons. The Hawks have a geographical advantage when it comes to their farm team being located 2 hours away in Rockford. If a player is needed for a game or two, the Hawks can call him up the day of the game, especially when they are at home. This way the Hawks only pay the daily cap hit when they use these players. From Hawkscap.com, the daily cap hits of some players who may be needing a lot of money on their I-Pass while they do the “Rockford Shuffle” are:
•Kyle Beach ($1.17M cap hit, $845K after taking out bonuses): $4,400 per day ($6,066 with bonuses included);
•Ivan Vishnevskiy ($821K cap hit): $4,257 per day;
•Shaun Lalonde ($773K cap hit, $573K after taking out bonuses): $2,867 per day ($4,007 with bonuses included);
•Igor Makarov ($553K cap hit): $2,863 per day;
•Jeff Taffe ($550K cap hit): $2,849 per day;
•Any player with a $500K cap hit (Hugh Jessiman, Rob Klinkhammer, etc): $2,590 per day.
So you’re looking at roughly between $2,600-$4,400 per day each time you call up a player from Rockford. Why have a player to sit in the press box and have his $500K off the cap when instead you maybe use this player for half the time? You save $250K on your cap by using the Rockford Express.
Another reason to roll with 21 is because a lot of these players mentioned are still young and developing as players. Examples of these players are Beach, Lalonde and Vishnevskiy. They would be better served playing 20 minutes a night every night instead of sitting and watching in the press box.
Lastly on this point, looking at the Hawks schedule there’s a few sections that stand out. They are:
•November 17th to November 27th (6 game road trip over 11 days)
•February 1st to February 12th (6 game road trip over 12 days)
•March 5th to March 13th (4 game east coast road trip over 8 days)
•Between January 15th and January 31st the Hawks only play 5 games.
For these road trips, it probably would be wise to carry a 22nd man as you’re not close to Rockford. But instead of carrying this 22nd man for 193 days, you carry him for 31 days leading to cap savings. Conversely, for that time the Hawks only play 5 games in 16 days, there’s no need to have 22 on the roster.
Part 2 will outline the roster projection as of August 6, 2010.
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