Hairyducked Idiot

Were they playing one of our wild card rivals? That'd suck.

And I was sitting there cheering because screw pitchers today, screw pitchers tomorrow, screw pitchers for all time.

Soler wasn't even born when that came out. I'm going to guess no. that doesnt matter at all You spend a lot of time sitting around playing Hunt the Wumpus at his age?

Stick him in LF. Coghlan sucks.

Soler wasn't even born when that came out. I'm going to guess no.

Well, that went well.

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).

Feels an *awful* lot like you tried very hard to find reasons to trade him. 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? 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. 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. That statement requires putting an amount of faith in Scott Darling's future that 19 games in the NHL does not justify. 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.

That's entirely possible, but I don't see why the Blackhawks should be interested in giving him that chance when they've got a perfectly cromulent starting goalie right now.

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.

NHL save percentage, regular season: 2013- .912 2014- .915 2015- .915 Corey Crawford 2013- .926 2014- .917 2015- .925 For contrast, Niemi with the Hawks was .912, Emery was .908, Raanta is .912. He's an above-average goalie. The 15th-ranked goalie in cap hit makes 5.6m. He makes 6m. I don't see the problem here.

His cap hit is in a three-way tie for 7th among goalies. It's about 300k above 15th. That's not elite under any reasonable definition of the word. It is, like him, above-average.

The Capocalypse is a yearly ordeal by now, and this seems like one of the least worrisome ones in awhile. There will be some column inches filled with rumors about Seabrook or Crawford, but they're simply going to deal Sharp and Bickell, and let Oduya go. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. None of those three are particularly hurtful losses. Sharp just isn't the player he was even two years ago. Meanwhile, they've got a crop of young players that is already making an impact in the NHL and getting better: Saad, Teravainen, van Riemsdyk, with plenty of candidates to make the leap next year. Those guys add more to the roster than the cap casualties will take away. I'm not saying they'll win again next year. I still think there's more luck in the playoffs than people realize, and this year's team got a lot of it. But they don't look like they're in line for any sort of dropoff to me.

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

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?

The "skaters won, not the goalie" meme doesn't really apply this year, especially not to the Final. They lose that series without Crawford playing insane.

OK, I lied about going to bed. 41% of the other NHL teams have been eliminated by the Blackhawks at least once in the last 7 years.

How much do you think an average NHL starting goalie makes right now? Because Crawford's not that far off his peers.

OK, one more then I have to go to bed: I kinda wish Tampa Bay had gotten one in the closing seconds to give Kane two Cup-winners.

And as always, one of the best parts is seeing all the other fans' forums reacting. Tampa Bay fans are doing the usual " we'll be back" routine that every losing team does. Anaheim fans feel like we did last year. Minnesota fans are still salty as heck against us. Vancouver fans are nostalgic for when our rivalry with them was still in doubt.

Yes. We could probably get a lot for Hjarlmarsson too. Yes, but losing Hammer would hurt the defense a LOT. Convince me that Crawford is better than Raanta and Darling straight up. Now convince me that he's better than those guys plus the return we could get for him and what we could spend his salary on. If you aren't convinced after that series, you won't ever be. And that's OK.

OK, I think we can now close the book on the great Kane-JvR draft debate. We made the right pick.

Yes. We could probably get a lot for Hjarlmarsson too.

If someone wanted to call us lucky this year, I wouldn't exactly yell them down. 16-7 in the playoffs with like a +8 GD or whatever, and outshot by a wide margin. Unsustainable win percentage in one-goal games. But when you're really good and in the hunt every year, you'll have a year like this sometimes.

I think we'll get value for both. We always do. People make a big deal about how teams should just punish us for our hubris, but in the end someone will want these players. Who wants Bickell other than the fact he helps you reach the cap floor? Somebody dumb who wants grit in their top 6.