2014 Blackhawks Offseason Thread

[Banedon]

I'm just blatantly stealing these from reddit, but they're too great. NHL draft pics of Blackhawks....

 

http://i.imgur.com/FogV430.jpg

 

http://2.cdn.nhle.com/blackhawks/images/upload/gallery/2012/06/21268791_slide.jpg

 

http://www.hockeygoddesses.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/hjalmarsson_chicago2.jpg

 

http://1.cdn.nhle.com/blackhawks/images/upload/gallery/2012/06/51059056_slide.jpg

[Guest]

Would have been nice to have had Kopitar instead of Skille.

[Brian707]

Would have been nice to have had Kopitar instead of Skille.

 

 

If you draft Kopitar, Hawks don't draft Toews the following year, and probably don't draft Kane the year after that.

[Brian707]

. But basically, yeah, a guy retiring in the middle of a long contract leaves you with a dead cap hit that you don't want. Blackhawks may have to worry about it with Hossa.

 

 

Unless Hossa pulls a Pronger and is forced into retirement due to injury. He has a history of back problems so they might go with that in a couple years.

[biittner77]

. But basically, yeah, a guy retiring in the middle of a long contract leaves you with a dead cap hit that you don't want. Blackhawks may have to worry about it with Hossa.

 

 

Unless Hossa pulls a Pronger and is forced into retirement due to injury. He has a history of back problems so they might go with that in a couple years.

 

I think Hossa will still be god enough, even at the end of his contract, to provide value even if it's in a more limited role like a 3rd line bum slayer.

[Banedon]

Blackhawks sign Raanta for 2 years at $750k/yr and Ben Smith for 2 years at $1.5m/yr.

[Flames24Rulz]

Blackhawks sign Raanta for 2 years at $750k/yr and Ben Smith for 2 years at $1.5m/yr.

 

Really good deals.

[Guest]

Would have been nice to have had Kopitar instead of Skille.

 

 

If you draft Kopitar, Hawks don't draft Toews the following year, and probably don't draft Kane the year after that.

 

yeah, that's probably true

[jersey cubs fan]

Chris Kuc ‏@ChrisKuc 4m

Source says #Blackhawks are listening to offers for winger Patrick Sharp.

[Brian707]

Sharp is probably gone now, not official but cap to be around 68 million instead of 71.

[Banedon]

Kesler to Anaheim.

[jersey cubs fan]

wrong thread

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Kesler to Anaheim.

 

I'm glad I never bought into the "we're going to get a 2c" hype. We never *really* mean it and are always fine without one.

 

(now watch us go get Statsny)

[jersey cubs fan]

Chris Kuc ‏@ChrisKuc 1m

That is NOT good news for the #Blackhawks. -- RT @capgeek: Sources say the upper limit has been set at $69M.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Chris Kuc ‏@ChrisKuc 1m

That is NOT good news for the #Blackhawks. -- RT @capgeek: Sources say the upper limit has been set at $69M.

 

I'm not like dancing in the streets over this, but the Blackhawks have a deep set of young players and their cap-heavy assets are still very tradeable, so I'm not exactly cliff-jumping over it.

[Soul]

I don't see how we were ever going to be able to keep all this together anyway. At some point we were always going to need to start cycling up younger players, or face the slow slide down the standings.

[kujay]

Hawks moved up. Neal is a big trade but expected more early tonight.

[kujay]

@DownGoesBrown: Stan Bowman throwing in a little "it's nice to be back in Philadelphia" dig that I don't think many of the fans here got.

[jersey cubs fan]

Green Bay? Ewwww

[Guest]

69m cap is really bad news.

[minnesotacubsfan]

What does it mean? Are we trading Sharp now?

[jersey cubs fan]

probably, maybe sea brook

[Guest]

they need to try really hard to dump bickell and versteeg. i bet leddy will be moved too, since q doesn't seem to like him much anyways.

[biittner77]

they need to try really hard to dump bickell and versteeg. i bet leddy will be moved too, since q doesn't seem to like him much anyways.

 

The Hawks are $500,000 over the cap. If they trade Oduya, which has been long speculated and seems even more likely to happen since they traded up for Schmaltz, that would give them all the flexibility they need for the coming season. No need to gut the roster quite yet.

 

Where they will need to find more room is 2015-2016. That's when new paper for Toews, Kane and Saad would kick in. Which is why, from a purely business perspective, that trading Sharp now makes more sense as it would get more value when they aren't as desperate. From a hockey standpoint, they need to keep Sharp until they know who his replacement is going to be.

 

They'll decide what to do with Leddy after this coming season. I may be in the minority but I don't believe Q hates Leddy, in fact I think he likes him a lot. Q really likes offense from the blue line and Leddy provides that better than anyone on the roster not named Keith or Seabrook. What some people see as not trusting him in key situations, I see as Q protecting him / putting him in a position to succeed.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

They've got tons of young talent in the pipeline and their potential cap casualties like Sharp or Bickell have tons of trade value still.

 

I'd rather have a higher cap, but I really don't think they are in that bad a shape.