Blackhawks off season

[UMFan83]

How do we replace Oduya and to a lesser extent Rozival?

 

My concern regarding next year is that the Hawks have played a LOT of hockey the last 3 seasons. And they've already proven to themselves that they can coast through the regular season and turn it up in the playoffs. Keith-Seabrook-Hammer is an elite top 3 but then you are looking at TVR and 2 marginal players filling out the back end. Doing what the Hawks did with 4 blue liners playing 90% of the time for 2 playoff series was nothing short of amazing. But doing that for another 100 games after a 3 month break is impossible. So the 4-6 guys will be getting plenty of minutes and the top 3 will be playing at 80-85 percent.

 

It could work out or the Hawks could really struggle if they can't find 1-2 dependable guys for the 3rd pairing.

[seanimal]

the "let's run raanta out there" argument from tim here is just a 2015 version of "marty turco will be great with this defense in front of him"

 

the skill level that crawford has displayed in the playoffs, particularly on the cup runs, is something no sane person trades away because of a couple hundred thou in overpay

 

that's not to say that you don't listen to offers when there's an opportunity to sell high, but you don't really entertain them unless you're extremely confident you have an option that is as good or better. as of 6/15/2015, that is not true of the hawks

[Northsider]

I poked around in the stats from last season a bit, looking to find or make quick-and-dirty evaluations of shots/game, consistency, instances of goalies dominating and being dominated, and I tried to find something to support Crow. I used only goalies with at least 10 starts, and got stats from http://www.hockey-reference.com/leagues/NHL_2015_goalies.html. My findings, in short:

 

I used SA/GS. Crow ranked 24th fewest shots/start by this measure, at 29.66 SA/GS, out of 62 goalies with at least 10 starts. Darling and Raanta had ~32 each.

 

I looked at shutouts/really-bad-start (RBS on hockey-reference, # of starts with a SV%<.850); Crawford had a 0.5. 31 players had at least a 0.5, including Darling (no RBS, 1 SO) and Raanta (who had a 2 SO/RBS). Only 6 players were older than Crawford, and only one faced more than 31 SA/GS. Failing to make this cut were Hiller, Backstrom, Luongo, and Emery.

 

Of the 31 above, Crawford was 4th most consistent ((SO+RBS)/GS), at ~10%, with only Kinkaid (no SO or RBS!, 0%), Darling (1 SO, ~7%), and Bobrovsky(~10%) scoring better than Crow. Next best was at ~14%; the highest was ~45%. Raanta scored 25% even.

 

Crow's best stat was QS%, which was starts with a SV%>(league, I think) average save%. Of goalies with at least 10 starts, only Pekka Rinne, Darling, and Hammond were better.

 

Crawford's consistency is a major point in his favor; he almost always gives his team a chance. That said, he rarely wins one for the team (just 2 regular-season shutouts). His best stat - QS% - is not utterly elite, as he's 2.5% off Rinne's stat, and Hammond dominates both by ~4%, but it is the top of the lower tier (he's 0.6% and 1.1% off the next best pair). However Darling has shown strong consistency and a better QS% in his short time, and potential comps for Crawford as he ages are rather terrifying (Luongo in particular, thanks to the contract situation).

 

The opportunity cost of Crow might very well be Seabrook or Hjalmarsson. Those guys do a LOT to make Crow look good, and it's a position where we're weak (yes, we have TVR/Pokka in the wings, but those guys replace Leddy and whoever gets traded. We'd still need to fill for Oduya, assuming he's gone). The Depth at Goalie just seems much, MUCH deeper right now than at Defense, and a Crow trade could very well shore up the defensive depth, making the Darling/Raanta job easier.

 

Subjectively, it looked like Crow lost a step this year, like he was a bit slower to react to the puck; a problem neither Darling nor Raanta had. This resulted in a lot of bad rebounds at other times in the season, and it seemed to me like the rest of the team had to step up to get him past the hump. If Crawford is right on the edge of some sort of reaction-time boundary right now, and other teams still value him highly, now is absolutely the last time to get rid of him before he becomes a cap-albatross.

 

So I think I'm with Tim. Trading Crawford avoids the risk of getting stuck with a Luongo-contract, which may have hamstrung the Canucks, while allowing us to shore up the D-line depth, thus protecting the talented but perhaps not quite as elite goaltending depth we have; not trading him may hit us in our already weak defensive depth and expose Crawford at a time in his life when he's particularly vulnerable to a sudden and precipitous decline. Since the team we trade him to will likely have decent defensive depth of their own (if they send us defensemen), a trade could be in Corey's best interests as well.

[biittner77]

Why did you use 10 starts? That would include a lot of back ups including Darling.

[Guest]

Seriously, someone tell me something other than "he was awesome in the playoffs"

 

the rest of his nhl career? he's played 5 full seasons. 2 of them have been fantastic, 2 of them have been good, and only 1 of them has been bad. the blackhawks are blessed with a hall of fame core of forwards and defensemen. maybe it's worth overpaying a goalie by a little to bring stability to that part of the team. goaltending is not a good place to skimp when you know the rest of the team is in good shape.

 

he's overpaid, and there is a good argument to be made for trading him. but calling him average, or saying that he wasn't important in the last 2 runs? completely disagree. he's been one of their most valuable players in the last few playoffs.

 

the real question is why people fawn all over jonathan quick for doing less than crawford has done

I've consistently called him above average and that he was a part of the past two runs. I've consistently said he's not a "problem" for this team. What I'm advocating is taking advantage if the market places too much value on him right now.

[biittner77]

Player GP GS W L SV% GAA SO QS QS% RBS GA%- GSAA

Ben Bishop 62 58 40 13 0.916 2.32 4 34 0.586 8 98 2.27

Sergei Bobrovsky 51 47 30 17 0.918 2.69 2 25 0.532 3 96 5.3

Corey Crawford 57 56 32 20 0.924 2.27 2 39 0.696 4 89 15.77

Devan Dubnyk 58 54 36 14 0.929 2.07 6 37 0.685 4 83 23.7

Braden Holtby 73 71 41 20 0.923 2.22 9 45 0.634 7 90 17.46

Henrik Lundqvist 46 43 30 13 0.922 2.25 5 28 0.651 4 91 10.43

Carey Price 66 65 44 16 0.933 1.96 9 42 0.646 6 78 36.7

Jonathan Quick 72 69 36 22 0.918 2.24 6 40 0.58 9 96 5.83

Tuukka Rask 70 64 34 21 0.922 2.3 3 41 0.641 8 91 15.65

Pekka Rinne 64 61 41 17 0.923 2.18 4 44 0.721 5 91 14.23

Semyon Varlamov 57 56 28 20 0.921 2.56 5 33 0.589 6 92 11.87

Cam Ward 51 48 22 24 0.91 2.4 1 25 0.521 7 105 -5.69

 

I looked at goalies with 40+ starts then narrowed it down to the group of goalies that are either considered "elite" or highly paid. Looks to me that Crawford is not terribly out of place here except in shut outs. Here's some of the things that jumped out to me:

Crawford had a better save % than Lundquist

Only Rinne had a better Quality Start %

Crawford had fewer really bad starts (RBS) than Price

[Felix Leiter]

I'd say Crow is a Top 10 goalie, who lets in the occasional easy goal that drives you crazy. But as EdZo says 'your record doesn't come with photos'. He does have two Cups and that's great.

 

The Hawks will lose Rozival and Timmo because of age and probably Odjua because of salary on defense. Carbomb and Versteeg are gone and I think Vermette, Richards and Desjardins They'll trade Sharp and probably offer Bickell around. They seem pretty set at RW, but will still need a 2-3 line center and LW depth. Be nice to get that back in return for Sharp/Bickell. I'd sure sign Saad to a long term. I wonder if Marcus Kruger gets big offers from other teams.

 

But the younger Hawks could be coming up like Pokka and Johns(d). Nordstrom, Danault and Schmaltz© and McNeil and Hartman(f).

[biittner77]

Versteeg will make $2 mil against the cap next year. If you trade him and Bickell and Sharp that Leaves Saad, Panarin and Desjardins at LW. Tuevo moves to center the 2nd line. So it looks something like this currently:

 

Panarin Toews Hossa

Saad Tuevo Kane

Desjardins Kruger Shaw

Nordstrom Danault McNeil/ Hartman

[Hairyducked Idiot]

and I tried to find something to support Crow. I used only goalies with at least 10 starts, and got stats from http://www.hockey-reference.com/leagues/NHL_2015_goalies.html.

 

Feels an *awful* lot like you tried very hard to find reasons to trade him.

 

I used SA/GS. ... I looked at shutouts/really-bad-start (RBS on hockey-reference, # of starts with a SV%<.850); Crawford had a 0.5. ... QS%

 

I'm sorry, but this just feels like the Golden Corral of stats. Lots of choices, but no reason to think any of them are any good. Why should I care about any of these stats any more than I care about a baseball player's RBIs?

 

The opportunity cost of Crow might very well be Seabrook or Hjalmarsson.

 

Absolutely, positively, 100% no. There is a zero-percent chance of that happening. IT's something a few people and probably some journalists are going to throw around like a boogeyman, but it isn't going to come close to happening.

 

Those guys do a LOT to make Crow look good, and it's a position where we're weak (yes, we have TVR/Pokka in the wings, but those guys replace Leddy and whoever gets traded.

 

LOL no.

 

Once again, trading either Seabrook or Hjalmarsson is completely off the table, and we *just* got done proving that Keith/Seabrook/Hjalmarsson and a competent fourth is plenty to make the position a strength. TvR looks like a safe bet to be a useful guy, there's a solid chance that Pokka or Johns will make the leap this year, and there's room in the salary-cap budget for a cheap, reliable veteran.

 

The Depth at Goalie just seems much, MUCH deeper right now than at Defense, and a Crow trade could very well shore up the defensive depth, making the Darling/Raanta job easier.

 

That statement requires putting an amount of faith in Scott Darling's future that 19 games in the NHL does not justify.

 

So I think I'm with Tim. Trading Crawford avoids the risk of getting stuck with a Luongo-contract

 

Another crazybuckets statement. The problem with Luongo's contract wasn't necessarily the cap hit, it was the length. He had 9 years left on his deal when Vancouver traded him. Crawford has five more, not at all an unreasonable position to be in for a goalie who is 30 years old and for whom there is no statistical reason to believe he's anything other than in his prime right now.

 

The entire argument for Crawford comes down to this:

 

"He's an above-average goalie, but we can presume that Scott Darling's 19 games last year and Raanta's 14 were meaningfully predictive (but *not* Raanta's performance the year before) so we better trade Crawford because some other team might overpay (true for just about anyone on the team) and his cap hit is onerous (despite it being less than half a million more than the median for a starting goalie in the NHL)."

 

If we're trading players because someone might overpay, because if they suddenly become bad their cap hit sucks, and because if we just assume that we can fill in their production cheaply, then there's no reason to single out Crawford. You could apply the same logic to Hjalmarsson, Keith, Toews, Seabrook easily.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

The salary cap projects to be $71.5m next year.

 

You trade Sharp and Bickell (and yes, someone will take Bickell's full salary. In the worst case scenario, you throw in a pick, but I would be stunned if that happened. Teams loving adding big forwards with Cup experience).

 

That puts you at $54,300,120 in cap hits with the following under contract:

 

Forwards (6)

Toews, Kane, Hossa, Versteeg, Shaw, Teravainen

Defensemen (4)

Keith, Seabrook, Hjalmarsson, van Riemsdyk

Goalies (2)

Crawford, Darling

 

That gives you about $17.2m in cap space to sign Saad and Kruger as RFAs and then fill in 8 spots (assuming they want to carry an extra forward and D). Even if we go *crazy* and assume Saad and Kruger combine for $7.5m, that's enough room for 2 or 3 Richards-level guys before filling out the roster with Nordstroms (and Panarins).

[Brian707]

an injured bishop was more impactful than crawford this series

 

I like it when you really dig your heels in on being obstinately wrong.

 

 

This stuff is still going on? Your point is spot on in regards to the Crow hate.

 

Steve Konrod made a great point. If you deal Crow, you better hope you get it right otherwise you aren't sniffing a Cup again with this core.

[Brian707]

I'm amazed at how a hot streak in the playoffs has changed people's opinions on Crawford. Just a couple series ago we were arguing whether he was average or slightly above average. Suddenly he's an untouchable, elite goalie that should be paid like his peers at that level.

 

That's a bit of a strawman. I don't want to trade him because he's an above-average goalie with an appropriate salary and there's no need to create a hole there when there's plenty of quite tradeable, quite expendable assets in line ahead of him.

 

Did *anybody* say he was elite and should be paid as such?

He *is* being paid like an elite goalie. Anyone saying that he earns his salary is implying that he is elite. And largely, they are justifying it by pointing to his great run through part of the playoffs and ignoring the part where he was awful.

 

 

He is paid like he is an elite goalie NOW. But in two years time, his salary will be very reasonable for an above average goalie. You HAVE to overpay in the begining especially after a Cup win in 2013.

 

 

And what goalie isnt auful at times? The great Lundquist gave up 6 goals to a Tampa team who potted 1,4,3,1,1,0 goals vs the Hawks. Lets also not forget the Hawks split the Jennings trophy this year.

 

I think people when Crawford gives up 3 or 4 goals in a game they blame him instead of the shotty defense that plagued the Hawks at times during the regular season and earlier in the playoffs

[Brian707]

I listed several recent goalies who have played in front of the same defense with lesser results.

 

When have the Blackhawks under this regime ever made one of those fantasy-stock-market type trades on a guy they really liked? The blueprint for the capocalypses have been clear: Keep the guys you like, regardless of what you could get.

Crawford's first year he was under .900, wasn't he? I think there's plenty of room for improvement from Raanta.

 

 

He almost stole the series vs Vancouver in 2011 his first year. He had one piss poor series in 2012 vs Phoenix. As Kyle has pointed out very well, it's too big a risk to be messing around with a goaltender who is NOT overpaid.

[RynoRules]

I listed several recent goalies who have played in front of the same defense with lesser results.

 

When have the Blackhawks under this regime ever made one of those fantasy-stock-market type trades on a guy they really liked? The blueprint for the capocalypses have been clear: Keep the guys you like, regardless of what you could get.

Crawford's first year he was under .900, wasn't he? I think there's plenty of room for improvement from Raanta.

 

 

He almost stole the series vs Vancouver in 2011 his first year. He had one piss poor series in 2012 vs Phoenix. As Kyle has pointed out very well, it's too big a risk to be messing around with a goaltender who is NOT overpaid.

 

He nearly neat Phx in 12' with Smith doing stuff he never did before or since.

[jersey cubs fan]

[tweet]

[/tweet]

[Brian707]

[tweet]

[/tweet]

 

 

Yeah I think something gets done before July 1st. Maybe a short term deal like 3 years that is very Blackhawk friendly and then he can hit the market and get paid a huge amount when he is still in his mid 20's

[kujay]

Richards made comments today that made it sound like he wants to stay. Not that it's surprising. But good to hear nonetheless. Would definitely be another "hometown" or "cup" discount. Wonder if any other helpful older guys want to ride this team to their first Cup.

[jersey cubs fan]

See what happens when you give that contract to Crawford.

 

http://screengrabber.deadspin.com/corey-crawford-tries-fails-to-avoid-saying-[expletive]-at-b-1712298731

 

He literally has F U money and he's not afraid to show it.

[jersey cubs fan]

Richards made comments today that made it sound like he wants to stay. Not that it's surprising. But good to hear nonetheless. Would definitely be another "hometown" or "cup" discount. Wonder if any other helpful older guys want to ride this team to their first Cup.

[tweet]

[/tweet]

 

He said Kaner has pull around here and should use it to keep Richards around. It's possible he would accept a lesser contract if Kane just keeps providing him his castoffs.

[kujay]

Richards made comments today that made it sound like he wants to stay. Not that it's surprising. But good to hear nonetheless. Would definitely be another "hometown" or "cup" discount. Wonder if any other helpful older guys want to ride this team to their first Cup.

[tweet]

[/tweet]

 

He said Kaner has pull around here and should use it to keep Richards around. It's possible he would accept a lesser contract if Kane just keeps providing him his castoffs.

 

Yeah that's the quote I saw. Like to hear that, he was very solid.

[squally1313]

I read something earlier that implied that Saad could be open to giving a slight discount too. Richards definitely seems to be that way, and I think he showed that by only signing for $2m for this past year.

 

As long as Richards' still has enough for another year, I think he's a pretty important piece because it allows Teuvo to lead that third scoring line after the Toews line and whatever line Kane is on (in this case Richards' line). We've shown that Kruger and Shaw are enough to make up a good shut down line, but I think it's been that scoring depth that has really separated us from other teams that have a top 6, checking line, and then 3 grinders/org guys.

 

Let Kane, Hossa, Saad, and Panarin be the top 6 forwards around Toews and Richards, and let Teuvo, Versteeg, and someone continue wrecking the third pairing of the other team. Nordstrom can slot there if he ever learns offense, or else he'd be fine with Kruger and Shaw.

 

Find a veteran to pair with Hammer behind Duncs and Seabs, and then you should be able to find a reliable third pairing out of TVR, Svedberg, Johns, Clendening, and Cumiskey. If we have to lose Seabrook, it gets a little murkier. But we've done this before...we'll be fine.

 

Saad-Toews-Hoss

Panarin-Richards-Kane

Versteeg-Teuvo-Hartmann

Nordstrom-Kruger-Shaw

Duncs-Seabs

Hammer-Veteran

TVR-Svedberg

[biittner77]

Clendening got traded. There's Pokka though but it seems like he made need more time. Svedberg came on late in the season after the Hawks traded Brennan. There's also Mike Reilly who they're trying to sign. I agree, they'll have options.

[Brian707]

By this time next week Sharp will be gone. I hear Washington wants him. If Troy Brouwer got a 1st, I would have to think the Hawks can at least get that.

[jersey cubs fan]

By this time next week Sharp will be gone. I hear Washington wants him. If Troy Brouwer got a 1st, I would have to think the Hawks can at least get that.

I think the Rangers should try and get him.

[Brian707]

By this time next week Sharp will be gone. I hear Washington wants him. If Troy Brouwer got a 1st, I would have to think the Hawks can at least get that.

I think the Rangers should try and get him.

 

 

Yeah that would be a good fit. As long as he goes to the East or a crappy west team.