The Pending Chicago Blackhawks 2010-11 Salary Cap Apocolypse - Part 3

To trade Sharp or not? Very tough question with no easy answer.

Part 1 and 2 are below.

I’ll outline a couple of player decisions at first, put together my base roster and lines, and then discuss the player decisions a little more afterwards.

1) Re-sign Niklas Hjalmarsson and Antii Niemi for around $4M combined. This number may move up or down slightly given playoff performances. That said, I think these 2 are the priorities of the offseason in terms of RFAs.

2) Buy out Cristobal Huet. Again, I’m assuming that the burying in Rockford idea is a no go, and the Hawks weren’t able to trade him. All you’re left with then is the buy out option at $1.875M per season.

3) Bury Brent Sopel in the minors. This may be the point where I use a little magic, but I think that this is a possibility. Some team might take him for a late draft pick with just one year on his contract as well. Bottom line, Sopel cannot be on the roster.

4) Re-sign Andrew Ladd to a 2 year $3.8M contract.

5) Do not re-sign the following: John Madden, Kim Johnsson. As much as I like these players, they just don’t fit in the salary cap.

6) Do no re-sign Ben Eager. He’d have to be qualified at $1M or so as an RFA and that’s just too much for a 4th liner given the cap.

7) I would consider Burish or Fraser for a 13th forward role, but only at the right price. If not, they're not back.

8) Jack Skille, Brian Bickell and Jake Dowell make the team. Also, one of the Hawks D prospects, either Lalonde or Connelly make the squad.

9) Re-sign Jordan Hendry at $0.6M as a number 6 or 7 Dman.

10) Trade Kris Versteeg and Dustin Byfuglien. Traded for what? I’ll discuss that below.

Which brings us to the following base lineup:

Brouwer (1.025M)-Toews (6.3M)-Kane (6.3M)
Sharp (3.9M) - Bolland (3.4M)- Hossa (5.25M)
Ladd (1.9M) - 3rd Line Center- Skille (0.85M)
Bickell (0.525M)- Dowell (0.525M) - Kopecky (1.2M)

Keith (5.54M) – Seabrook (3.5M)
Campbell (7.14M) – Hjalmarsson (2.0M)
Lalonde (0.6M) – Hendry (0.6M)

Niemi (2.0M)
Back-up G (1.0M)

Huet Buyout (1.875M)

Cap hit: 55.4M
Cap: 57.7M
Cap space: 2.3M needing a 3rd line center and either a 13F/7D

A couple points here. So Buff and Versteeg are traded. For each of them I would be looking for near-NHL ready prospects, preferably centers or goaltenders, or draft picks. One player I would target is Andrew Cogliano in Edmonton. I feel he’s under-utilized and won’t be commanding a hefty pay raise next year. He could slot in nicely as the 3rd line center and make around 1-1.3M a season. Or these trades could bring back a young, cheap 5/6 D man. I’ll assume that the Hawks just get prospects though for the rest of this.

I would prefer to have another veteran defenceman to stabilize the 5/6 pairing. Boynton is an option if he’s willing to sign for less than $1M and the Hawks carry Hendry as a 7D. Fraser could be an option to make the team here as well if you’re willing to have Dowell or Fraser as the 3rd line center. I probably would look for other options first, but it is a cost-effective solution.

You’ll also notice a couple other things. First, every hundred thousand bucks the Hawks can save is going to go a long way, whether it be in the Hammer/Niemi contracts or in the backup G contract. Also, just imagine for a second that you don’t have the Huet buyout there, that somehow he miraculously got traded or he was buried on the Rock. Then, that roster has $4.1M in cap space with jut a 3rd line Center, a better 3rd pairing defenceman and a 13th forward, and you’d still have about $1 million left. This is what Stan needs to convince Rocky of on why burying Huet in the minors could be huge. That extra $2M to work with is pretty big. All of a sudden you’re left with this situation:

Brouwer (1.025M)-Toews (6.3M)-Kane (6.3M)
Sharp (3.9M) - Bolland (3.4M)- Hossa (5.25M)
Ladd (1.9M) - 3rd Line Center- Skille (0.85M)
Bickell (0.525M)- Dowell (0.525M) - Kopecky (1.2M)
13F

Keith (5.54M) – Seabrook (3.5M)
Campbell (7.14M) – Hjalmarsson (2.0M)
Lalonde (0.6M) – veteran 5D
Hendry (0.6M)

Niemi (2.0M)
Back-up G (1.0M)

Cap hit: 53.6M
Cap: 57.7M
Cap space: 4.1M needing a 3rd line center, better 5D (possibly acquired in Buff/Versteeg trade) and a 13F if you so choose.

This is workable. You could spend roughly $3M combined on your 3rd line center and veteran 5th Dman and still have about $1M in cap space at the start of the year which would allow you to pick up roughly an additional $4M in cap hit at the trade deadline to improve the team.

You could take this one step further as we also come back to the center problem. Another way for the Hawks to save an extra $1M or so is to trade Sharp for a center and put Beach on the squad. Teams would be lining up for Patrick Sharp so this may be realistic. I’m thinking along the lines of a younger, cheaper center already in the NHL in exchange for Sharp. I’ll just assume for illustration that the Rangers are willing to give up a guy like Dubinsky ($1.85M cap hit) in a deal for him. That may be an ideal scenario, but for argument's sake this brings us to:

Brouwer (1.025M)-Toews (6.3M)-Kane (6.3M)
Beach (1.2M) – Dubinsky (1.85M)- Hossa (5.25M)
Ladd (1.9M) – Bolland (3.4M)- Skille (0.85M)
Bickell (0.525M)- Dowell (0.525M) - Kopecky (1.2M)
13F

Keith (5.54M) – Seabrook (3.5M)
Campbell (7.14M) – Hjalmarsson (2.0M)
Lalonde (0.6M) – veteran 5D
Hendry (0.6M)

Niemi (2.0M)
Back-up G (1.0M)

Cap hit: 52.8M
Cap: 57.7M
Cap space: 4.9M needing a better 5D and a 13F if you so choose.

You could even get by with a Huet buyout in this case and still have $3M left for a defenceman and a 3rd forward.


So there are options. That first option is the base option as outlined, and can be tweaked here and there. There will be hard decisions that have to be made, but that’s the reality of the situation.

I personally prefer the second option as I value Patrick Sharp on this team and I’m of the opinion that Rocky is making a lot of money on this squad right now and that he should pony some of that cash up by burying Huet in order to help keep this squad contending for the Stanley Cup. Especially when ticket prices are rising by as much as I’m hearing they are. Sometimes you do have to clean up the messes made by your employees (Tallon) in order to make sure the entire company doesn’t pay the price for longer than it has to. This applies in this situation. So as a Hawks fan I’m asking you Rocky, please take that money that has come out of our pockets as fans in order to make sure this team stays a contender for the Stanley Cup. It can be done and really it falls to you Rocky.

The Pending Chicago Blackhawks 2010-11 Salary Cap Apocolypse - Part 2

Will he be back next year?

Part 1 is below. To continue...


So the Hawks have serious salary cap problems and it’s the end of the world, the sky is falling, etc…

It’s not completely doom and gloom though. A lot of teams wish they would have a core of Toews, Kane, Hossa, Keith and Seabrook locked up. Still, it takes more than 5 guys in hockey to be an elite team, and that’s what Hawks fans want. At least the team is being marketed as an elite team before they’ve won anything, but that’s another rant for another day.

Were there mistakes made by Tallon and management? Fuck yes. Are there ways to fix it? Yes, and management can go a long way into solving some of these problems. How willing they will be to potentially eat $11-14 million in contracts remains to be seen. If Rocky is truly serious about wanting a winner, he’s going to have to consider this option and probably act on it.

So what’s the plan? The following needs to be considered:

1) The Hawks’ most near NHL-ready prospects are on the wing. Prospects are another way of saying cheap, serviceable players with the potential to outplay their cap number.

2) The Hawks are going to need either a 2C or a 3C, depending on how you characterize Bolland. This will have to come either via a trade of the “secondary core 7” or via free agency.

3) The Hawks can’t afford to ice a deep group of forwards and a pretty good D-core without saving money in net.

4) It will be very difficult to find a taker for Huet or Sopel via trade. I’m not saying it’s impossible as who knows, maybe there is a Mike MIlbury out there. Any trade involving these two is going to require some serious sweetener for the other side (hello Patrick Sharp, Kris Versteeg or Dustin Byfuglien). Is it worth it to give up one of those 3 just to get rid of Huet? Depends on the deal I’d say.

5) Saving a couple hundred thousand here, and a couple hundred thousand there is going to go a long way to keep the Hawks together. Stan Bowman has to negotiate with all free agents by using the “anti-Tallon doctorine”, ie, not overpaying guys. This consideration will also manifest itself on the bottom 6 forwards and bottom 2 defencemen as you are more likely to see young, cheap prospects there as opposed to some of the pending RFAs who currently fill those positions.

6) It would be nice to have more than $200K in cap room when it’s all said and done. It would allow for flexibility and the ability to add an impact player or two at the trade deadline next year.

I’m going to assume a couple of things here as well:

1) The salary cap, based on what Glenn Healy said on the Hockey Night in Canada hotstove a couple weeks ago is going to be $57.7 million for the 2010-11 season.

2) That Rocky is not going to be open to burying the $11M remaining on Cristobal Huet’s contract in the minors. This is the magic card that makes this a lot easier, but I’m going to assume there are no magic acts for the purpose of coming up with my base roster. I will illustrate however on how burying Huet and saving the extra $2M could go a very long way in making this team better.

3) That said, Rocky will be a little more open to burying the $2 million actual ($2.3M cap hit) on Sopel’s contract.

4) That Stan is actually able to negotiate and not grossly overpay the free agents that are signed. This may be a big reach, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

5) I’d like to trade Kopecky and replace him with a player making $500K less, but fact is he’s probably not going anywhere as he's Hossa' BFF.

6) That despite having leverage over the Hawks knowing the Hawks have to cut salary, there are going to be a number of GMs interested in any of the “secondary core 7” that are available on the trade market. This fact will lead to competition between GMs to get their hands on any of these players and give the Hawks a chance to get a pretty decent return for any of them.

7) Lastly I’ll assume that nobody out there is trading for Cristobal Huet. Either that, or the Hawks think the “sweetener” route to getting rid of him is too expensive in terms of giving up a good player for nothing.

Given all that, Part 3 will outline how the Hawks ice a very good hockey team next year despite the cap issues.

The Pending Chicago Blackhawks 2010-11 Salary Cap Apocolypse - Part 1

I realize that the goal for this blog was to write about college basketball during the season but unfortunately life and work got in the way of that plan. That said, I’ll try to update this more often.

With the calendar turning to April it’s time for the NHL playoffs. While there are a number of issues that the current Blackhawks team has going into the playoffs, the team has clinched a top 2 seed. What I think of this Hawks squad’s chances in the playoffs will depend a little bit on the matchups. So I’ll wait til next week to work on that.

Instead, I’m going to focus on the upcoming salary cap apocalypse the Hawks are going to face in the 2010-11 offseason and what I would do if I were Stan Bowman. Obviously there are players that are not going to be back in Chicago based on the salary cap constraints. Part 1 of this analysis deals with the lay of the land. Part 2 will outline my considerations and assumptions. Part 3 will outline my plan for next year’s roster as of April 9, 2010 recognizing that a lot can change in the next couple months. With that, let’s categorize the players in the Chicago organization shall we?

(2010-11 cap hit)

Group A: The core: Jonathan Toews ($6.3M), Patrick Kane ($6.3M), Marian Hossa ($5.25M), Duncan Keith ($5.54M), Brent Seabrook ($3.5M)

Group B: The players with contracts that mean they will very likely be here next year either because their contract is tough to trade or provide great value: Brian Campbell ($7.14M), Troy Brouwer ($1.03M)

Group C: The players the Hawks want to get rid of at all costs, buy out, trade, bury in the minors, whatever: Cristobal Huet ($5.625M), Brent Sopel ($2.33M)

Group D: The secondary core: Patrick Sharp ($3.9M), Dave Bolland ($3.38M), Kris Versteeg ($3.08M), Dustin Byfuglien ($3.0M),

Group E: The key RFAs who are Group D: Antii Niemi (RFA), Andrew Ladd (RFA), Niklas Hjalmarsson (RFA)

Group F: The replaceables: Tomas Kopescky ($1.2M), Adam Burish (UFA), Colin Fraser (RFA), John Madden (UFA), Ben Eager (RFA), Jordan Hendry (RFA), Nick Boynton (UFA), Kim Johnsson (UFA)

Group G: The prospects (anticipated 10-11 cap hit): Jack Skille ($0.85M), Kyle Beach ($1.2M), Brian Bickell ($0.53M), Jake Dowell ($0.53M), Corey Crawford ($0.85M), Brian Connolly ($0.85M), Shaun Lalonde ($0.6M), Brandon Bollig ($0.54M)

The key for the Hawks this offseason is what happens with the deadweight players, or Group C. If the Hawks can get rid of Huet and Sopel, the rest can fall into place without much detriment to the roster. Easier said than done however.

Where the Hawks are going to lose significant pieces this offseason is in Group D or E. No matter how you slice it, most likely 2 of those players are going to be gone. The Family Bowman is going to have to prioritize which of those 7 players are the most important to the Hawks future factoring in skill level, age, position and cap hit. How would I do this?

1) Niklas Hjalmarsson – To me, “Hammer” is the most important RFA to sign. The Hawks do have good depth in the system on the blue line with Shawn Lalonde, Dylan Olsen and Nick Leddy in the system. But I believe that Hjalmarsson can be a very, very good top 4 defenceman in this league, perhaps even top 2 some day. He’s reliable and getting better every day. In his first 2 years of the league, much of his time has been spent covering for Brian Campbell. The kid is top priority in my book.

2) Antii Niemi – No matter how you crunch the numbers, the Hawks for the next year or two really can’t afford a lot of money tied up in net. The playoffs will be the true litmis test for Niemi, but at the very worst he has shown he’s an above average NHL backup bordering on being a good NHL starter. At age 26, he can still get better. His athleticism is something that can’t be taught.

3) Patrick Sharp – There is no discounting Patrick Sharp’s value to this team. His versatility to play center in a pinch is also important. He’s normally a dependable two-way player and can play on either of the top 2 lines. However, he may also be the most valuable trading chip of these 7 players, which is something to be considered. If it’s possible to trade Sharp for a pretty good number 2 C and save money at the same time, you have to consider it.

4) Andrew Ladd – To me, Ladd is one of the more underrated players on this team. He just goes about doing his job quietly but it is a very important job. Ladd is arguably the Hawks’ second best defensive winger behind Hossa. I believe if playing with Toews and Kane for 82 games he could pot 30 goals, but his value to this current roster is on the checking line.

5) David Bolland – I’ll come out and say that Bolland’s back issues worry me greatly. He hasn’t had a great season by any stretch. That said, if you remember back to last year he was one of the Hawks’ more clutch performers and played in a number of situations. The Hawks do have a lot of forward depth in the system, but not so much at center. Because of this, trading Bolland would only make sense if the Hawks got another center in return. Here’s hoping he’s fully healthy next year.

6) Dustin Byfuglien – You can’t teach what Buff has, and that’s size. Also, he’s a versatile player being able to fill in on the blue-line as the team has struggled with injuries to Brian Campbell and Kim Johnsson. In fact, I think he should be put back on D permanently but I doubt that’s going to happen. The problem with Buff is his motor. You see max effort from the guy once every 8-10 games it seems. For that reason, he’s down on this list.

7) Kris Versteeg – There is no doubt that Versteeg can be a very good player in this league and his puckhandling skills are a sight to behold at times. At age 24, he still has a lot of room to improve. That said, given the Hawks forwards both on the NHL team and in the system, he’s the most replaceable forward. Some team will get Versteeg for a discount and be very happy.

I reserve the right to adjust the order of this list after the playoffs are done.

It’s a reality that one or more players on that list of 7 will not be with the Blackhawks next year. It would be great if there was no salary cap so the Hawks could keep this core and secondary core together for a long time. It would also be great if either a) certain players were never signed in the first place and/or b) players were not over-paid on RFA contracts. If any of those were true, the Hawks would not be in this mess to the degree they are. But they are and there’s no use crying over spilt milk.

What do the Hawks do?

State of the Blackhawks - July 17, 2009

(Associated Press July 14, 2009)


Another eventful week for the Blackhawks, but I’m starting to get tired of the offseason, let’s just drop the puck already.

Front Office Politics - Tallon out as GM, Bowman Jr. in

Straight out of some Shakespearean tragedy, it seems like the Chicago front office has had its share of politics lately. On Tuesday the Blackhawks relieved Dale Tallon of his GM duties and replaced him with Stan Bowman. Tallon still has a position in the organization, that of Senior Advisor of Hockey Operations.

It’s taken myself a while to wrap my head around all of this as I’ve long had the belief that Tallon was in over his head, but at the same time, the way this all went down just smells bad in my opinion.

As a GM, Tallon has had his good and bad moments. He’s made some very shrewd moves such as bringing in Marty Havlat, Kris Versteeg and Patrick Sharp for Mark Bell, Brandon Bochenski and Matt Ellison (on an aggregate basis). While having the number 1 and 3 picks is a nice luxury to have, he made the right selections with Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews. He’s also been a major factor in creating the strong team chemistry that the Blackhawks have. If there’s any doubt of that, the story of the Blackhawks taking a bus to attend Tallon’s father’s wake in the middle of a long road trip should alleviate any doubts. Tallon is in my opinion, a solid hockey man.

On the flip side, Tallon just was not qualified for the business aspect of being a GM. The signings of Brian Campbell and Cristobal Huet were just brutal and have handcuffed the Hawks a little here going forward. Stories of faxing out a list of players to other GMs available for trade, not necessarily handling the media well and capitulating a little too easily in contract negotiations were also factors that led to his demise. The final straw might have been the whole RFA-UFA fiasco that happened right after the UFA deadline and that was outlined in my previous State of the Blackhawks entry.

The writing was on the wall for Tallon the moment that Scotty Bowman joined the Blackhawks last September. This, and the apparent meddling in hockey operations of team president John McDonough was leading to a situation where there were too many chiefs and not enough Indians in the Blackhawks front office. It’s clear that McDonough has wanted to bring in his guy, and according to some (Marty Havlat) didn’t want to see Tallon get all the credit for turning the Hawks into a legitimate upper echelon team in the NHL.

I’ve given credit to McDonough for turning the Hawks around from a business perspective, but there is absolutely no way that he should be involved in any hockey decisions. I am more qualified to make a hockey decision than he is. And if it becomes apparent that he’s sticking his fingers in that aspect of the front office too much, it’s up to Rocky to do something about it.

There have been rumors of a front office divide between Tallon and McDonough for some time now. My question is, why wait until after the UFA period, the draft, etc, if you know that you’re going to let the guy go? The way this all was handled is not how a first-class organization does things.

Bottom line, it’s obvious McDonough is a snake. While I believe that relieving Tallon of his GM duties and placing him in a Hockey Operations position (word is that his main focus will be the draft) is a good idea, the way it was done makes me a little sick to my stomach.

The other concern I have is that Tallon was very well respected and loved in the Blackhawks dressing room. It’s great that he’s still in the organization for this reason. I’m still unsure of how the players will react to this news and hopefully it’s not too much of a distraction. If the Blackhawks were a veteran team I wouldn’t be too worried, but when you have a young team, their reaction to something like this is not so cut and dry. I don’t think it’s a huge concern, but something to keep in mind.

Regarding the Blackhawks new GM, Stan Bowman, the jury is out. I would have preferred someone with a little more experience but I will give Bowman the benefit of the doubt. By all accounts, Bowman’s expertise is on the business side of things and that might be a good thing for where the Hawks are right now. Someone is going to have to figure out the cap problem and that is concern number 1 right now. There’s no doubt he’ll have his fathers input and assistance as well, and that helps appease a few of my doubts as well.

So at the end of the day, the Hawks have the business and numbers guy (albeit inexperienced) in the GM role, they have one of the greatest hockey minds of all time as the GM’s right hand man, they have a very good hockey guy who is good at drafting and finding talent as a key component of their draft and scouting operations. Makes sense right? Looking at this now, I would have to say yes, but like I said, I don’t like how it came about.

The X-factor in all of this is John McDonough. I just pray that he keeps his grubby fingers out of the hockey operations side of things because he has no clue there, and lets people do their jobs. I also pray he doesn’t let his ego get in the way of things either. So long as that happens, the Hawks should be alright.

We’ll see how this all plays out, but man, this offseason has not lacked for intrigue and excitement, that’s for sure.

Marty Havlat

A lot of us follow major sports news outlets like TSN or ESPN, etc. Nowadays, social networking mediums such as Facebook or Twitter are starting to play a bigger role in the amount of information a fan can get regarding their team.

Marty Havlat has a Twitter account and throughout his negotiations was using it to keep Hawks fans updated of how negotiations were going, and how much he really wanted to stay in Chicago. When July 1st rolled around and Havlat was not re-signed, he was pretty pissed off and his “tweets” reflected that. He promised something of “the real story of what happened in Chicago” but nothing more was really said about that.

That is until Dale Tallon was fired. Marty tweeted a few times on the subject, calling Tallon a “second father” to him and how this negotiation was not between himself and Dale, but moreso between Tallon and McDonough. He then decided to spill the beans to TSN on what the real story was, and how McDonough was a “phony”, how Tallon was a dead man walking for sometime now, and how McDonough was jealous of what Tallon had accomplished.

First off, I’m going to thank Marty for his time as a Blackhawk and he was in my opinion the Hawks best player this past season. He is extremely talented and I wish him the best in Minnesota. Also, I want to thank Marty for telling the story, because rarely as fans do we get to hear something like that about internal organizational workings. The most we usually get is rumor or innuendo. So it was fascinating to hear about this.

I do have some issue with Marty though and he’s also to blame for him not being a Blackhawk right now. My version of how events went down goes something like this:

Right after the season Tallon and Marty were negotiating a long term deal, probably something like what Hossa got in order to keep the cap hit down. Probably for less money because of Havlat’s past injury history. If Marty really wants to stay with the Hawks, they could have gotten something done then, of that I have no doubt.

But Havlat and his agent Allan Walsh get greedy and try to get even more out of Tallon. Knowing that Tallon has overpaid “his guys” in the past, Havlat thinks he can use his friendship with his “second father” to his advantage in getting more money. So they don’t sign anything and think that on July 1st, under the gun of Havlat being a UFA, Tallon would capitulate like he has in the past and they would get more money. Bit of a gamble by Havlat and Walsh, but one can see the logic in it.

What Havlat and Walsh fail to account for is that the Hawks have been working on a backup plan seeing that they were getting nowhere in their negotiations with Havlat prior to the deadline. (What would you do if you’re the Hawks? Doesn’t look like they’re going to sign Marty so you sit there with no backup plan? Good for the Hawks to have a Plan B). July 1st rolls around, and the Hawks sign Hossa meaning there’s no room for Havlat anymore.

Bottom line Marty, you got a little greedy and gambled, and you lost. Again, I appreciate your contributions to the Hawks these last 3 years and wish you the best of luck, but now it’s time to stop acting like the jilted ex-girlfriend and move on.

State of the Blackhawks - July 10, 2009

Perhaps this is why the Hawks have great chemistry?


Given the fact that the Hawks have been pretty busy here in the last week or so, it made sense to do up another State of the Blackhawks entry.

1) The RFA-UFA fiasco

There is no question that the Blackhawks on the ice have a boatload of young talent and will be one of the better teams in the league for some time (let’s hope). There is also no question that our GM has shown the ability to be a complete tool at times as well.

While the facts are not completely clear, and they probably never will be seeing as the issue didn’t go to an arbitrator, the Blackhawks management (or clerical staff) made an error in not tendering the qualifying offers to their restricted free agents on time.

Flat out, there is no excuse for this. None. Zero. I don’t want to hear that “we were busy focusing on the draft” or “we never made this mistake in the past” bullshit from Tallon or Bowman Jr. or whoever. These qualifying offers were a mere formality and should have been sent out in the middle of June.

What nearly happened is Blackhawks forward Kris Versteeg and defenceman Cam Barker were deemed unrestricted free agents because of the mix-up. Also affected by this were Ben Eager, Troy Brouwer, Corey Crawford, Aaron Johnson, Brian Bickell and Colin Fraser.

Obviously, Versteeg and Barker would have garnered a lot of attention should they have been UFAs. It’s not often that a Calder Trophy nominee and a 3rd overall pick, powerplay QB type defencemen, both in their early 20s, are on the open market. It could have been a disaster if the Hawks lost them for nothing. A mistake worthy of termination if you were Tallon and Bowman Jr. in my mind.

Fortunately, the Hawks’ chemistry saved Tallon from the worst-case scenario. Despite the fact the players could have walked for nothing potentially, all stated they wanted to stay in Chicago regardless, and all ended up re-signing with the Hawks for on the whole, a decent amount of money. It’s obvious that this team wants to stay together, enjoys playing together, loves the city of Chicago and feels that the Blackhawks are on the verge of something special.

Running down the contracts the players got, Brouwer got 2 years at $1M/per which is not bad. Eager signed for less that I thought he would at $965K for one year, and Fraser re-upped at $700K for one year. Surprisingly, the Hawks also re-signed Aaron Johnson, for depth on defence. Corey Crawford and Brian Bickell also got one-year deals.

Barker and Versteeg both got similar 3 year deals for a little over $3M a year. If you look around the NHL at comparable players, this is in the ballpark. But I can’t help shake the belief that if this whole fiasco doesn’t take place, the Hawks could have saved about $1M combined between the two. Looking forward to 2010-11’s cap crunch, that extra $1M could have gone a long way.

So in summary, I’ll give Tallon credit for quickly reacting and making sure the Hawks didn’t lose any of these assets for nothing. But he’s still a tool for letting it get to this point.

2) Salary Cap Issues

Currently the Hawks are sitting at around $58M for 14 forwards, 6 defenceman and 2 goalies. The salary cap for 2009-10 is $56.7M but there is a bonus cushion this year for around $4M, so you can say the cap is around $60M.

The bonus cushion is used for players on entry level contracts who have bonuses in their contracts. If they players don’t attain these bonuses, then it won’t count towards your final cap. If they do reach them, then they do. The catch with the bonus cushion is if you use it this year, then the amount you’ve used will be taken off of 2010-11’s salary cap.

To use the bonus cushion this year when next year Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane and Duncan Keith all come up for new contracts, would be absolutely idiotic. Here’s hoping Hawks management realizes that.

That $58M number includes Brent Sopel’s $2.3 cap hit on the books, and I believe he’ll be down in Rockford to start, so that saves some money.

There will most likely be a trade as well to free up some money. I was saying Versteeg would be the one dealt a week ago, but after the whole RFA fiasco, perhaps he might be staying now.

I can see one of Dustin Byfuglien, Patrick Sharp or Versteeg being dealt here in the near future to save some money for not only this year, but 2010-11. A lot of this will tie into which Hawks prospects seem to be ready to make the jump to the NHL.

3) Prospect Camp

From various reports on the internet, it seems that Akim Aliu is turning heads at Blackhawks prospect camp and seems to be the most ready to make the jump to the NHL right now. The problem with Aliu has been his tendency to be a headcase and a loose cannon mentally. If he can keep his head on straight (big if), he could be a force as he has the physical tools to do so.

Other prospects who could make the Hawks in the near future are Kyle Beach, Billy Sweatt, Igor Makarov and Jack Skille. All four are forwards, which is already the Hawks deepest position. This further lends to the belief that the Hawks are going to trade some of their NHL forwards in the next year or so to make room for the cheaper replacements mentioned above.

To me, if Aliu is ready to go this year, he could replace Byfuglien who would fetch a decent return right now after his strong playoffs. I don’t see Jack Skille making an impact and see him getting passed on the depth chart by the other names mentioned, so I would look to deal him while he still has some value. Igor Makarov’s development could also push Versteeg out the door as well. It’s going to be a very interesting training camp with a lot of competition for a few spots.

4) Projected Lines

Now with Versteeg and Barker signed, and my belief that you can’t go trade a guy like Versteeg right after he signs a contract with you as basically a UFA, I’ll put him in the lineup. I’ll also assume that Buff isn’t traded right away, and that the Hawks are able to start the season under the cap. The other assumptions I’ll make is that another defenceman isn’t acquired, despite all the rumblings that the Hawks are looking at acquiring one, and that none of the prospects make the team off the bat. For now, I’d go (LW-C-RW):

Sharp-Toews-Kane
Versteeg-Bolland-Hossa
Ladd-Madden-Byfuglien
Eager-Kopesky-Brouwer

Burish/Fraser as extras

Keith-Seabrook
Campbell-Hjalmarsson
Barker-Hendry
Johnson

Huet
Niemi

I like the 3rd line as a line that is big and can bang on the boards, and can shut down another team’s top line. Although I can see the Q-stache switching Ladd and Versteeg in order to give all 3 lines a playmaking presence instead of having the 3rd line as a pure checking line.

The team still needs another D-man to me, but we’ll see how the offseason plays out. And goaltending is still a concern. Those two items, along with working on extensions for Toews, Kane and Keith should be the priorities for Tallon the rest of the offseason.



I figure that’s enough for one week, we’ll see what the next week brings for the Blackhawks.

Speaking of reclamation projects…

“He’s called timeout….Michigan doesn’t have a timeout, that’s a technical foul!!”

Those words, spoken by the immortal (and not in a good way) Billy Packer still ring in my ears to this day. Why you ask? Ever since I knew what college basketball was, I’ve been a Michigan Wolverine fan. I remember the team with Glen Rice and Loy Vaught cutting down the nets in the Kingdome in 1989, and I remember how a group of 5 freshmen captured the spotlight in reaching the NCAA Championship game in 1992 and then doing the same as sophomores in 1993 before Chris Webber called the timeout he didn’t have. The group I’m referring to is the Fab Five (Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, Juwan Howard, Ray Jackson and Jimmy King). Even though they lost those two title games, when you see baggy shorts and black socks on a basketball court today, it’s because the Fab Five were the trend-setters.

Despite the near misses in those years, the Michigan basketball program continued to excel, making NCAA Tournament appearances, winning a Big Ten Tournament title in the next 5 years. While not on the level of the UCLAs, North Carolinas and Kentuckys of the world, they were still one of the premier basketball programs in college basketball.

Today, if you ask someone about the Wolverine basketball program, they might not know what you’re talking about. “What basketball program?” might be the smart-ass response. Where did it all go wrong for Wolverine fans?

The answer to that question is complex to say the least. If you’re looking for a starting point, look no further than to February 1996. The Wolverines had a solid team led by players like Maurice Taylor, Robert Traylor and Louis Bullock. They were going to the tournament. One night, while entertaining recruit Mateen Cleaves, Maurice Taylor’s SUV rolled over when Taylor fell asleep at the wheel. Read that sentence again. A college kid from inner Detroit was driving an SUV. Seems a little “Blue Chips-like” no? The NCAA sure thought so, and decided to launch an investigation.

The NCAA found a Detroit city booster by the name of Ed Martin was gifting cars and money to Wolverine players. While I and many others believe that this is a common occurrence through most NCAA programs (see USC football for instance), the NCAA decided to come down hard on the Wolverines, placing them on probation and stripping scholarships. The Final Four banners hanging in Crisler Arena from the Fab Five days? Those were brought down too as it was found that Chris Webber accepted gifts as well. Mateen Cleaves a Michigan lean at the time, ended up going to Michigan State and was a key component of the Spartans 2000 national championship. And so the nightmare of the last 10 years for Wolverine fans began.

In summary, Michigan basketball’s bright era was tainted, the program put on probation and their intra-state rival Michigan State rose to prominence instead of being second fiddle in the state of Michigan. Every Wolverine fan knows it all goes back to that SUV. I’m not advocating paying players, but if that SUV doesn’t flip, the decade of “nuclear winter” for the Wolverine basketball program probably doesn’t happen.

Coach Steve Fisher resigned under all the scrutiny and Brian Ellerbe was hired to take his place. For 4 years, the Wolverines went nowhere under Ellerbe’s guidance and he was fired in 2001. From there, former Duke assistant Tommy Amaker was hired and that was another mistake seeing as Amaker was a former Duke assistant. Amaker was able to somewhat clean up the mess left from the probation so I will credit him for that, but far too often his teams underachieved and he failed to make the NCAA Tournament in 6 seasons with the Wolverines.

So why I am writing this? To re-hash a decade of how I was loyal as a Wolverine fan despite their absolute shittiness for that time? To remind myself that if Maurice Taylor doesn’t flip that SUV the Wolverines could have had a great last 10 years basketball-wise?

I’m writing this because it’s interesting to note how my favorite basketball team is undergoing a major resurrection much like my favorite hockey team, the Chicago Blackhawks, are. There is one reason for this turnaround and he goes by the name of John Beilein, the head coach of the Michigan Wolverines.

Beilein was brought in from West Virginia in 2007 and has long had a reputation for being one of the best tacticians in the game. In his previous 3 coaching stops (Canisius, Richmond and West Virginia) he was able to get those teams to the NCAA Tournament, and nearly made the Final Four with an underdog West Virginia team in 2005.

The cupboard was left pretty bare in 2007-08 for Beilein as much of the previous year’s team had graduated or transferred. The Wolverines got off to a rocky start, as usually is the case under a new coach, but by the end of the year were playing much more sound basketball. It gave hope to this fan that in 2008-09, the Wolverines could be decent.

Turns out, I underestimated the 2008-09 Wolverines, because before you knew it, Michigan was upsetting UCLA and Duke in the non-conference schedule and positioned themselves for their first NCAA Tournament appearance in 11 years. The Wolverines were over-achieving (a hallmark of a Beilein coached team), not under-achieving like the teams under Amaker, which must be a Duke thing. Despite a few rocky patches along the way in conference, on March 15, 2009, 11 years of waiting for Wolverines fans ended as Michigan made the NCAA Tournament.

Not only did the Wolverines get in, they upset the favored Clemson Tigers in the first round, and then gave Oklahoma (led by NBA number 1 pick Blake Griffin) all they could handle in the second round.

Gone are the days when the Wolverines would play without heart or would beat themselves. This team now will get down and scrap with you, dive for lose balls, play good defence despite being under-sized and will not turn the ball over 20 times a game. We have one of the best tacticians in the game as our coach and even if unwarranted from a talent perspective at times, the players believe they can beat anyone on a given day, and that belief has spread to the fans.

There is genuine excitement about the Wolverines going into the upcoming season. Manny Harris and DeShawn Sims are 2 of the better players not only in the Big Ten, but in college basketball in general. A lot of analysts have the Wolverines in the top 20 preseason rankings at this point. Michigan adds a pretty good recruiting class to a team returning 80% of a team that made the NCAA Second Round. One of the knocks on Beilein was that he hasn’t been a great recruiter, but looking at his previous schools, none of those had the “name” of Michigan behind his recruiting efforts. This is further proven by the solid start Michigan has gotten off to with 2010 recruiting.

Throughout the college basketball season, I will touch upon everything and anything going on in the world of college basketball, but you’ll probably see more than few entries on the Wolverines. As I said, it’s been a long nuclear winter for Wolverines fans, and we’re excited to be back again. Maybe not back to the point where the team was winning national championships and making Final Fours, but without question, Michigan basketball is relevant once again.