biittner77

Just got back from the thinking man's Philadelphia (aka Boston) Here's my thoughts on all this: Dano isn't a center or at least didn't play there last year at Lumbus from what I've heard. "Ansimov is the Russian Dave Bolland" was my first reaction when I read about the trade. He's good when healthy but more likely 3rd line center. Tropp is garbage. Morin is just weird. I didn't like that the Hawks had to send back Paliota (sp?) but I guess they needed to do that to get Dano who could be a real find. Taking the picks was never a realistic option for the Hawks. They still have to trade Sharp, Bickell and Versteeg to make everything else fit. Paying Saad would have meant trading the rights to Kruger and also trading Shaw in addition to Sharp and Bickell. Much as I love Saad I can see why Bowman didn't want to do that. I'm not sure if Lumbus was going to make an offer sheet or not, that almost never happens. I think Bowman made the trade to send a message that if you want to stay, take what we offer because we can't / won't give you any more. Hopefully Seabrook is paying attention. There is a market for Sharp as there are teams that need scoring that might have been waiting to see what they could get in FA before giving up assets. Let's see who shows up at the convention. Last year Leddy wasn't there and he was the one that got traded.

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.

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

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

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

I left off Sharp and Bickell since they are the most obvious trade candidates.

Here's how I see this breaking down: Not going anywhere: Toews Hossa Saad Kane Tuevo Keith Hjammer They'd listen to offers but would rather keep: Seabrook Kruger Shaw Crawford Gone: Richards Vermette Oduya Roszy Free to a good home: Carcillo Rundblad

Are they? Hockey seems to have a hell of a lot more turnover than any other sport. Sure some of that is old guys going to a potential Cup winner (Richards/Kimmo) but a lot of that is just guys going to where the cash is available. Hockey players seem to hang around forever. That would force fringe guys to take what's offered in terms of money and situation. Big name players don't hit FA very often. The last big one, Parise, decided to go home rather than take his best chance to win. Toews and Kane took less money to stay in Chicago. I guess that's a pretty small sample. It seems like the big names wind up staying with their current team at some type of "home town discount". I admit though that it might just be my conception.

The first domino to fall will be the price tag for Saad. Some people say because he's a RFA that he can't really get much more than $3 mil. Others are thinking that it will take $5 to avoid having to match an offer sheet. If they can get Saad for $3 they might be able to afford Oduya but they would likely have to trade either Shaw or Kruger to make up the difference. However, if you're Oduya, you'd have to be very tempted to leave. The defense market being thin means that someone might give him that one last big contract. He's already won 2 cups so you can't really blame him for wanting financial security. Hockey players are less mercenary when it comes to money vs. chance to win but any other team could offer him more money.

After getting pulled in game 2 of the Nashville series, I thought the consensus among people here was that they'd need Crawford before the playoffs were over which turned out to be true. It's hard to know how it would have gone with Darling in net but he got exposed by the Preds. I shudder to think what Tampa would have done to him. I can see the argument for not wanting to pay $6 for any goalie. The Hawks will be entering next season needing to replace half of their blue line after Roszy retires(?) and Oduya takes the money that someone else can/will offer. Not really a good situation to be going with relative unknowns in goal. If you think the window is closing, all the more reason to keep Crawford for 1 more season. I think the Hawks will listen to offers for Crawford but it would take quite an overpay for them to trade him. Finding a taker for Sharp will be a lot easier than people think. He'd make a good captain for a young team. It will be interesting to see what they can get for Bickell. Though he didn't get on the score sheet in the traditional sense, he was the hits leader for the entire playoffs entering the final. There are teams that value HITZ though the Hawks may have to take back some salary to make that deal.

Plus a lot of hockey fans are Canadians and they're too polite to hate a team with so many good Canadian boys.

Tampa brings back essentially the same team next year, so I can certainly understand their optimism. They could use more depth on the blue line. When healthy their forward group is pretty solid 1-9. I'm surprised there isn't a lot more hate for the Blackhawks among other fan bases. I like to think that Toews and Kane are likeable stars but I could see where fans of other teams would think of them the way we think of the Cardinals- sick of them doing things right and getting great performances out of depth players. All the haters can suck it, especially the NHL network that was already dismantling the team an hour after the game ended.

Where was the Ben Bishop glove hand meme? These are the glory days, enjoy every second of them. May we do that for a long time to come. I started a new thread to discuss dismantling the roster/ capocalypse II: The wrath of Saad/ doom boner fest.

For those that can't wait to start breaking up the 2015 Blackhawks, lets do that here instead of the celebrating the cup thread. Yes, Tim, the Hawks could trade Crawford and get value in return. How much? It's hard to say. Goalies are a little like "Established closers" in that teams are willing to pay for good ones but aren't always excited to give up value to acquire them. The fact that Crawford has won multiple Stanley Cups increases his value. Trading him now would be very bold since goalies are also like middle relievers in that they can go from dominant to awful pretty quickly sometimes.

If was so lucky to have tickets, I'd sell them and just watch at home or at a sports bar; although, not for the reason you said. The prices are just too good to pass up. If they were Cubs tickets to a World Series game I could see refusing to sell them. The Hawks won the Cup 2 years ago. They will still be a pretty good team for at least another 5 years. Plus there's no guarantee they even win.

While the award is for the whole playoffs, the finals count for a lot more because the writers that vote aren't watching every playoff series. The idea that Keith is having a "down series" is woefully inaccurate. He hasn't shown up on the score sheet but he's been the most important player on the ice for the Hawks. The Hawks could probably win without Kane and they might be able to win without Toews. There's no way they could win without Keith.

It's sort of like the years where they didn't give the MVP to Jordan because everyone knew he was the best player so he didn't need the award or some such nonsense. 2010 Toews won when perhaps Kane should have 2013 Kane won when Crawford should have 2015 it should be Duncan Keith so maybe they give it to Crawford. I doubt it though since the media refuse to give him any credit. It wouldn't surprise me if they gave it to Hedman win or lose because East Coast Bias.

During the regular season, a .920 save % is about average. Playoffs are all about small sample sizes but historically, to beat the Hawks the opposing team has to have their goalie turn in a .940 save % and their team has to have a corsi of 55+. Hockey stats are a lot like defensive metrics in baseball though. I like how instead of taking five seconds to actually look up the average save percentage, you just made up a number that was horribly wrong. http://espn.go.com/nhl/statistics/team/_/stat/scoring/sort/savePct/seasontype/2 Your link lists team average save %. During the playoffs, teams aren't really playing their back up very much so I thought individual average was a more accurate response to what David was asking.

During the regular season, a .920 save % is about average. Playoffs are all about small sample sizes but historically, to beat the Hawks the opposing team has to have their goalie turn in a .940 save % and their team has to have a corsi of 55+. Hockey stats are a lot like defensive metrics in baseball though.

What are you talking about? If the Hawks could have put 5 on them, then Tampa could have put 10 on us. The Hawks have played better for like 3 or 4 of the 12 periods. They're fortunate to be tied. Now, has Tampa played as well as possible? Probably. Do the Hawks have another gear? Possibly. I like our chances, but the Hawks are very lucky this series is 2-2. I was talking more about the first 58 minutes of the game, not the flurry at the end with the extra attacker.

no, they are not very lucky. The Hawks were the exact opposite of lucky.

Tampa executed their game plan about as well as they could expect and they still lost. The Hawks could have easily put 5 on them last night. I really wanted Timmonen's shot to go in. Duncan Keith said the Hawks had another level to reach. Have we already seen the best that Tampa has? Corey Crawford is doomed to be the Rodney Dangerfield of goalies: No respect. Crawford is going to give up one goal at least per game. Once you accept that as a fan it makes it easier to appreciate what he does the rest of the time. He's like Boromir defending that bridge except the part where he dies.

Pens fans are saying that they're going to pursue Brandon Saad. In other news that won't happen, we colonize Pluto tomorrow and our death star is ready in case we need to make an example of Uranus.

Hossa can hit the empty net from 150 feet away but struggles from 8 feet.