The Cam Barker Era is OVER!
New Blackhawks' defenseman Kim Johnsson
The Blackhawks traded Barker to Minnesota for defenseman Kim Johnsson and the Wild’s top pick in the 2009 draft, Nick Leddy.
Leddy is the prize in the deal, a solid young defenseman prospect taken 16th overall in 2009, and was described this way by Hockey’s Future: ”You’d be hard pressed to find a better, more complete defenseman playing in the Minnesota state high school Class A/AA league this season than the Eden Prairie native. Leddy is also one of the early favorites for this year’s Mr. Hockey Award, which recognizes the top high school player from the state of Minnesota.”
Listed at 5′11 and 185 pounds, Leddy joins a deep group of Hawks prospects on the blue line with Dylan Olsen and Shawn LaLonde. He was the third-ranked prospect in the Wild organization. Hockey’s Future also says
The Hawks finally unloading Barker, who has disappointed throughout this year, allows the team to slide a veteran, minutes-eating blue liner into his slot on the third defensive group for the rest of this season. Barker had 14 points (4 G, 10 A) and was +7 for the Hawks this year, averaging just 13:06 on ice this season.
Barker has two years left on the contract extension he received before this season with a cap number over $3 million.
New Blackhawks' prospect Nick Leddy
Update: From Stan Bowman when he met the media.
Re: Johnsson: “He’s been in the playoffs, he’s been in the Olympics… he’s been in high-pressure situations before.” Johnsson played for Sweden in the 2002 Olympics.
Re: Leddy: “He was a big part of the deal… We’ve been very high on him since last year when we were trying to trade up in the draft to get him, actually… His speed is something that’s been talked about quite a bit… He had to be in the mix for this to work.”
On Monday night, Anaheim center Ryan Getzlaf went down with an ankle injury. He was sent for a MRI on Monday night, which came back negative, but his status is still up in the air for the Olympics; Team Canada could make a decision to replace him as early as Tuesday afternoon. This injury could have a number of impacts on the Blackhawks’ roster.
First, the most obvious is that the Ducks will be without one of the their better players for at least the next three games before the Olympics. There is no sense in Anaheim rushing their best player back from an injury for two games against the Oilers and one at the Flames this week. Getzlaf, 24, is the Ducks leading scorer with 57 points (15 G, 42 A) in 55 games this season.
The direct impact of Getzlaf’s absense for the next week isn’t obvious. But the trickle down potential should be.
Anaheim snapped the Kings’ 10-game winning streak on Monday night, and has won four of their last five games. However, their dismal 10-16-5 record on the road and lack of scoring outside of Getzlaf, Bobby Ryan and Corey Perry has them tied with Dallas for tenth place in the Western Conference, three points behind Nashville with Detroit between them.
If the Ducks drop a couple games between now and the Olympics, the mindset in southern California might quickly turn to the future. If that happens, the likelihood of the Ducks moving expiring contracts like James Wisniewski and Scott Niedermayer becomes significantly better. Obviously, the Blackhawks have interest in adding depth on the blue line (and getting rid of Cam Barker), and both of these players would be near the top of the list of potential trade partners for the Blackhawks. With other names the Blackhawks have been linked to starting to suffer injuries (Atlanta’s Boris Valabik reportedly has a torn ACL and is done for the year), the focus on the Ducks could become more intense in the near future.
The second trickle down impact on the Blackhawks will come if Getzlaf is either A) replaced on the Canadian Olympic team or B) stays on the roster but isn’t 100 percent. As the roster stacked up for Canada, it looked like the top line would be centered by Sidney Crosby, Joe Thornton would be in the middle on the second line, and probably Getzlaf would center the third. If Getzlaf is replaced/not healthy, the role of Jonathan Toews could increase dramatically. There was a pretty good chance that Toews would see more opportunities in the circle than Getzlaf based on their faceoff win percentages this year (Toews – 57.3, Getzlaf – 48.2). Getzlaf is more experienced, though, and would have likely seen more ice time.
As the news of the decisions, from Getzlaf, the Ducks and Canada Hockey, are made, we’ll see how it impacts the Blackhawks moving forward.
For those that have been reading CommittedIndians all season, you might remember that back on Dec. 8 we wondered out loud whether or not the Blackhawks could strike a deal with Anaheim to bring back James Wisniewski. On Saturday, the Daily Herald’s Barry Rozner reported that the Hawks have inquired about doing just that.
A quick refresher on the scenario: Wisniewski played for the Blackhawks for three and a half years before being dealt to the Ducks at last year’s deadline for Sami Pahlsson. Wisniewski was always a tough defenseman who loved to mix it up, but too often paid the price; he has never played more than 68 games in a season.
However, this year has been the best in Wisniewski’s career. In 53 games, he’s averaging a career-high 24:12 in average ice time and has scored 24 points (3 G, 21 A). His career high in points is 26, which he set in 2007-08 with the Hawks when he appeared in 68 games. That year he also served 103 penalty minutes, which he’s cut back in Anaheim this year to just 32 so far. In fact, Wisniewski is third on the Ducks in average ice time per game, behind only Scott Niedermayer and Ryan Whitney.
The two factors the Hawks will consider when making any deal at this point will be the quality they’re bringing back and the future financial impact on the organization. As we pointed out in December, Wisniewski is making $2.5 million this year and will be a restricted free agent this summer. Considering his production this year, Rozner estimates that Wisniewski could see a salary increase to the $4 million neighborhood after this season. While that likely means the Hawks wouldn’t bring him back, it also means Anaheim could potentially save money by bringing in Cam Barker in a deal; Barker is set to make $3 million for each of the next two years, and is two years younger than Wisniewski.
What would make this deal a home run for the Hawks would be that it would take care of three issues. First, they would be bringing back a more productive player if they dealt Barker for Wisniewski; Barker has scored just 14 points (4 G, 10 A) in 50 games this year. Second, they would be cutting $3 million off their books for next year. And third, because of his tenure with the team being as recent as it was and his popularity when he was dealt last year, re-acquiring Wisniewski would likely have a positive impact on the team’s chemistry more than anything else.
We were on board with the idea in December, and continue to hope that this rumor has some merit. If the Blackhawks dealt for Wisniewski, it would be a great move.
Kris Versteeg is still here... for now...
If only Stan Bowman had advised Adam and Eve.
The Hawks had a great opportunity in the last week to acquire an elite scorer in a trade, but ended up not pulling the trigger. The Atlanta Thrashers instead dealt Ilya Kovalchuk to the New Jersey Devils for defenseman Johnny Oduya, forward Niclas Bergfors, prospect Patrice Cormier and the Devils 2010 first round draft pick. The teams also swapped their 2010 second round picks in the deal. (Side Note: Cormier is indeed the player recently suspended for the rest of his minor league season for throwing an awful elbow into the head of an opposing player. You have likely heard his name in the last month, and will again; he’s a pretty good prospect.) This is a nice haul for the Thrashers, but it likely could have been better if Bowman had wanted in.
Not making this deal is the right thing to do, though, and I applaud Bowman’s patience. Though some of my colleagues (John Jaekel for one) might have been at the head of the bandwagon to pull the trigger, my excitement over adding another all star was restrained by the reality that there’s only one puck on the ice at any time, and making a good team even better in once aspect of the game at the expense of others likely wouldn’t have solved the bigger issues for the Hawks, and ultimately not helped achieve the ultimate goal of a championship.
The Blackhawks are fourth in the NHL in scoring at 3.16 goals per game entering Friday’s action, and only San Jose and Vancouver are ahead of them among Western Conference teams. Three goals a night should be good enough to win, but the knee jerk reaction of many casual fans after a couple lazy losses is that something needs to change. Every team goes through stretches where the offense struggles; we’ve all forgotten the Blackhawks scored 43 goals in their first nine games after Christmas (4.78 per night). The Blackhawks offense is as deep as any in the NHL, and adding a player like Kovalchuk would almost be too many weapons.
In fact, if you watched Bowman’s appearance between the first and second period on Wednesday night, or listened to owner Rocky Wirtz’s appearance on ESPN 1000’s “Waddle and Silvy” on Thursday, it because pretty clear that the Hawks were looking to bolster their defense. Wirtz was asked point-blank whether or not the Hawks were in the mix on Kovalchuk, and while he didn’t dismiss the idea he did say the Hawks, if they made a move, would look to add players that added to the team’s overall mold of solid two-way players. The Cliff Notes: Kovalchuk doesn’t play defense, so we don’t want him.
There is little doubt that the Hawks will make a move at some point between now and the March 3 deadline, but the reasonable and logical move would be to bolster the blue line. Ecklund, who spins as many rumors as TMZ with less documentation, has picked up a rumor that claims the Blackhawks stepped away from the bidding for Kovalchuk to keep pieces, presumably Kris Versteeg and Cam Barker, available for a trade to acquire Scott Niedermayer. Niedermayer, who is the captain of Canada’s Olympic team (which will have three Blackhawks in uniform I might add), would likely mean more to the Blackhawks on the ice than Kovalchuk could have because of his experience and ability. He isn’t the only name being linked to the Hawks, though.
Dreger has the Hawks interested in Andrzej Mezsaros, Spector says Sean O’Donnell, and the rest of the blogosphere has pretty much any experience defenseman with an expiring contract coming to Chicago in exchange for Versteeg, Barker, Andrew Ladd, Patrick Sharp and/or Dustin Byfuglien. Reality is that the Blackhawks have players hypothetically available that every NHL team would want, and can afford to make a deal or two to improve the team.
The Eastern Conference has now become a three horse race it appears, with the Devils joining the Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals at the elite level. This could certainly help the Blackhawks to make a deal into the East as teams will undoubtedly react to this bold move by New Jersey by trying to add players to combat Kovalchuk’s presence. After all, the Flyers brought in Chris Pronger specifically because of the big forwards in the East like Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby in Pittsburgh and Alexander Ovechkin in Washington, so seeing another move forced by reaction to Kovalchuk going to New Jersey isn’t far from happening.
So while the sexy move might have been nice, it wouldn’t have been the right move for the Blackhawks at this point. Yes, there are still some questions between the pipes, and the depth on the blue line could use some help, but the offense isn’t the issue. So before you throw your coffee mug across the room, be thankful Versteeg and Company will still be playing together against Phoenix on Friday night.
Patrick Kane celebrates his first period goal.
After almost three weeks and eight games on the road, and with Dave Bolland returning to the lineup for the first time since Nov. 5, the Blackhawks figured to get an emotional lift on Wednesday night.
Everything started well. Patrick Kane scored 7:40 in to give the Hawks a 1-0 advantage, which they held through the end of the first period. In the frame, the Hawks held the Blues to only three shots on net, none of which came in the first nine minutes.
Then the second period happened.
On only nine shots, the Blues scored three times against Cristobal Huet, the last two of which came in a back-breaking flurry to end the period. “Bad Huet” showed up on a night when Antti Niemi was supposed to start but was a morning scratch because of the flu. The Hawks didn’t help Huet much in the second, as sloppy passing and lazy puck handling contributed to the demise, but allowing three goals on only 12 shots to a team that only averages 2.53 goals per game (24th in the NHL) is unacceptable. The 19 shots the Blues put on net was their lowest total since the day after Christmas, when they only got 18 shots to the net against Minnesota.
Dave Bolland played well Wednesday.
The second goal for the Hawks was scored short-handed, and was a work of art between Jonathan Toews and Marian Hossa. Toews brought the puck up the ice, worked his way between two defenders (one of whom ended up on his butt) and completely crossed the zone, drawing Chris Mason from one post to the other. Hossa settled in on the far side of the net all alone and received a gorgeous pass from Toews that he easily deposited into the net. Despite getting worked on this shot, Mason was clearly the better netminder on Wednesday; he saved 32 of 34 shots on the night to earn a crucial win for a struggled St. Louis team.
Unfortunately for fans of the Blackhawks that don’t want trade rumors to be a distraction, night like Wednesday will continue to put pressure on management to bolster the defense in front of whomever is playing between the pipes, and the goaltender position will remain a question mark. The rumors about the Hawks’ involvement in the Kovalchuk Sweepstakes continue to be hot, and losing a home game to the Blues won’t help management feel comfortable with the roster as-is moving forward.
Could the Blackhawks make a deal for Atlanta's Kovalchuk?
Yes, the Blackhawks have a handful of games between now and the Olympic break. Those will be important for the team’s success this year, and could play a major role in their eventual seed in the Western Conference playoffs this spring. But there is more that Hawks fans should be paying attention to between now and Valentine’s Day than just the games, and it could make an even bigger difference in the team’s contention for the Stanley Cup.
On Wednesday night, the Hawks host the St. Louis Blues. The face value of this game is limited, with there being great joy in Chicago for the road warriors finally returning home against a rival. But between the lines, there is more intrigue building around this roster that won’t quickly go away.
The Blackhawks, with Dave Bolland returning, now have 13 healthy forwards trying to fill 12 active spots, and Adam Burish is expected to come back in March. Reports are that Colin Fraser will be the first healthy scratch in the mix of forwards for the crowded Blackhawks front lines, but the Hawks won’t likely go too long with too many players on the roster for the available slots. Which is what makes the next two weeks interesting for Blackhawks fans.
It’s the trade market.
We’ve already seen a handful of fairly substantial deals go down. The Calgary Flames have made two moves that, on their face, appear to be desperate moves to shake up a struggling roster that’s fallen out of the playoff picture in the West. Unloading a young star like Dion Phaneuf is hard for any franchise to do, and when you look at the return the Flames received, it raises eyebrows. Both moves made by Calgary are, presumable, calculated risks to maximize the immediate at the expense of the future. Ian White’s a nice player, but his upside isn’t nearly that of Phaneuf.
On the other side of the spectrum is Toronto, where Brian Burke has been bold in making two moves to add stars. By making moves for Phaneuf and Jean Sebastian Giguere, despite being clearly out of the playoffs, Burke has bolstered his lineup for the coming seasons. Toronto unloaded a lot of draft picks to get Phil Kessel last summer, and now has to look to either their minors, which are limited, or the trade market to improve. Burke has done a masterful job of lining his franchise up to be a player in the coming seasons.
The Blackhawks aren’t similar to either of these teams. They aren’t building for the future like Burke, and they certainly aren’t desperate like Calgary. The Hawks are in it to win it, so they’re in a mindset to tinker more than overhaul.
The subplot to this tinkering is the looming salary cap issues the Hawks are staring at this coming summer. Conservative estimates are that the Blackhawks need to cut between $10-12 million off next year’s payroll to have a roster under the cap. Between that reality, and the Hawks likely want for more depth on the blue line, a deal might be coming.
The trade deadline isn’t until March 3, but there’s a trade freeze during the Olympics (Feb. 12-28), which is what’s pushing the trade rumors up to now.
Kris Versteeg's name is hot in trade rumors.
We’ve already talked about the biggest name on the trade market, Ilya Kovalchuk. The reports have been mixed regarding his future, with some saying he’s going to agree to an incredible extension with the Atlanta Thrashers.
Reality for a financially-struggling franchise like Atlanta committing eight, nine, or ten years and $100 million to one player, though, is hard to imagine even in Georgia. The Thrashers organization has a history of letting players go, and Kovalchuk could be one of those players that the Thrashers’ management decides they simply cannot afford.
Reports from TSN’s Darren Dreger on Wednesday afternoon are that GM Don Waddell met with Kovalchuk today to inform him that a trade could be coming.
If you read what many of the big name analysts have said lately, the best, and perhaps only logical fit for a Kovalchuk deal is Chicago. Atlanta is not willing to let the receiving franchise negotiate an extension with Kovalchuk before a trade, which has pulled many teams away from the table. Kovalchuk has also expressed interest in testing free agency, meaning a team that trades for him would have to unload a lot of talent for a potential rental.
A rumor that has been brought up recently by TSN’s Bob McKenzie and HockeyBuzz’s John Jaeckel is a deal that would send Cam Barker, Andrew Ladd and Kris Versteeg to Atlanta for Kovalchuk and defenseman Boris Valabik. Intriguing…
Barker’s time in Chicago is likely, and thankfully, coming to a close at some point between now and September. For the production he’s bringing on the ice, and his $3 million price tag, he’s not pulling his weight on a team loaded with studs. Valabik is a big (6′7, 240 lbs) defenseman that has only played in 22 games this year, but who would fit into a rotation with Brent Sopel and Jordan Hendry for the rest of the season well. He’ll turn 24 on Valentine’s Day, and is under contract for next year with a cap number of only $775,000. That’s the kind of depth the Hawks are looking to build. He isn’t a statistically great contributor on the offensive end, but a team that has the firepower under contract that the Hawks have isn’t necessarily looking for another Brian Campell.
What makes this deal intriguing is considering the relative value being exchanged up front. Ladd is a restricted free agent after this season who, in all likelihood, won’t be invited back because of the cap issues. So, like Kovalchuk, he would be gone after this year anyway. The big gamble would be swapping out his offense, and Versteeg’s, for the rest of this year for Kovalchuk’s production.
To date, Ladd and Versteeg have combined for 58 points (24 goals, 34 assists). Kovalchuk, to date, has produced 58 points alone (31 goals, 24 assists). Hopefully that answers any potential problems with the production being exchanged.
The other point to consider in this deal is that it would cut $7.6 million off the 2010-11 books for the Hawks in exchange for an elite scoring forward. Kovalchuk would allow coach Joel Quenneville to move Dustin Bydfuglien out of the point on the power play and put his 240-pound frame in front of the net where it belongs. It would also give the Hawks more offensive depth than any team in hockey, including the ridiculous Washington Capitals.
This is just one rumor that’s flying right now, but the meeting between Waddell and Kovalchuk seems to make a move imminent. The Los Angeles Kings have been the hot name tied to Kovalchuk lately, but they don’t have pieces of value that they can afford to move in a deal like Versteeg, Barker and Ladd that wouldn’t impact their depth like this proposed move would impact the Hawks.
As the rumors continue to fly, we’ll keep you updated.
Rumors are swirling that Dave Bolland will return to the ice for the Blackhawks on Wednesday night at the United Center when the Blackhawks host the St. Louis Blues.
Bolland has been out since Nov. 5 because of a back injury (herniated disc) that required surgery. In the 13 games Bolland played for the Hawks before going under the knife, he scored two goals, was credited with four assists, and was +3.
If Bolland is in the lineup, the questions being dodged for the last month become relevant: who’s the odd man/men out?
The first issue to consider is the how coach Joel Quenneville puts his lines together with Bolland being available. The general assumption is that Bolland will be playing center on the Hawks second line, but it isn’t guaranteed that he’ll jump straight into the mix between Marian Hossa and either Patrick Sharp or another skilled wing in his first game action in almost three months. He might not be ready for the speed of the game, and expecting him to carry the 18-20 minutes required of the second line center would be an aggressive, and potentially irresponsible, move.
So where does Bolland go?
One logical spot would be into the third line. Bolland skated with Kris Versteeg at times last year, and has familiarity with both Dustin Byfuglien and Andrew Ladd. In this scenario, the top two lines for the Hawks would stay intact, and Bolland would bump John Madden to the fourth line with Ben Eager and Tomas Kopecky. Unfortunately for Colin Fraser, his roster spot is in jeopardy if this is the lineup Quenneville uses.
Another option would be to move Sharp back to wing opposite Hossa and indeed drop Bolland into his slot as the second center. That would shift Ladd down to either the third or fourth line, and could move Byfuglien down as well. In this scenario, Eager or Kopecky could be watching the game from the suite. Frankly, having Kopecky off the ice isn’t a terrible scenario; despite playing better lately, Kopecky still has the worst plus-minus on the roster at -4 and has scored only 11 points this season.
There’s another scenario that appears to be gaining consideration from many analysts, though.
All season, especially after the extensions to Duncan Keith, Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews were signed, the Blackhawks have been in the forefront of trade rumors because of their salary cap situation. In early January, CommittedIndians discussed the long term reality for the Hawks roster, and at that time we postulated that it would be Ladd that might be dealt during the season because of his expiring contract.* Even though Ladd will be a restricted free agent after the season, odds are that the Hawks won’t be able to afford him, and moving him during the season to bolster the blue line makes more sense than waiting for the draft.
Considering the return of Bolland, it makes more sense that the Hawks are picking up steam in trade rumors. A number of sites, including the Daily Herald, have linked the Blackhawks to Pittsburgh defenseman Jay McKee. McKee was a healthy scratch last night, which has only elevated speculation that he could be moving. However, if the Hawks are going to make a move it would figure to A) be for a younger player than Brent Sopel and B) be for a player who’s better than Cam Barker. McKee fill neither of those criteria. However, according to one story, “McKee is a 6-foot-3, 210-pound physical, stay-at-home defenseman who interested the Hawks last summer before he signed as a free agent with the Penguins for only $800,000.”
That doesn’t sound like a player that would cost as much as Ladd, or even Sopel for that matter. If Pittsburgh was willing or able to take Sopel’s cap hit off the Hawks’ books, I’m sure Stan Bowman would sign on the dotted line with anything that writes, but that doesn’t seem to be logical or realistic.
Other names the Hawks have been linked to as potentially bringing depth to the blue line for the rest of the season have been Carolina’s Aaron Ward, Toronto’s Garnet Exelby and Los Angeles’ Sean O’Donnell. Considering the action that’s already taken place in Toronto this week, a move with Brian Burke and the Leafs is certainly possible.
What could evolve into an intriguing scenario, though, is how willing Carolina becomes to dump veterans. The Hurricanes are playing well, as the Hawks unfortunately found out on Saturday night, but are far from playoff contention in the East. They have been rumored to be ready to clean house, but are waiting for the right offer(s). A name that would look good in Chicago is Ray Whitney, who’s rumored to be drawing more interest than Ilya Kovalchuk right now. Whitney, 37, has scored 41 points this year and has the desired expiring contract that would make him a great veteran to add to the Hawks’ roster for the stretch. If he and Aaron Ward were packaged together, it would present enough value that the Hawks could consider sending a package including Barker and perhaps Ladd to Carolina.
Of course the Hawks have a history of dealing with the Canes; Ladd was acquired from Carolina just two years ago.
However the roster shakes down, it’s encouraging to have a healthy Bolland back on the ice. He’s one of the more skilled players on the roster, and Hawks management considers his Hockey IQ to be elite. The Hawks are three points behind San Jose for the best record in hockey, and they’re about to get better.
Cam Barker, who has missed the last five Blackhawks games with an upper body injury, is expected to return to the lineup for Saturday afternoon’s contest in Columbus.
Barker has struggled statistically this year, with only 13 points (four goals, nine assists), and hasn’t scored a goal since Nov. 11 against Colorado. Coming off a 40-point season in 2008-09, Barker has failed to emerge as a consistent force on the power play and has fallen to the third defensive pairing.
Considering his $3 million cap number, Barker might be on borrowed time in Chicago. With Adam Burish and Dave Bolland coming back from injury soon, Barker, 23, will likely continue to be among the more popular Hawks in trade rumors between now and the Olympics in February. Jordan Hendry has filled in admirably for Barker over the last couple weeks.
As we’ve discussed, the Blackhawks are headed towards a summer with a lot of questions. Many analysts have already written about the Hawks need to cut payroll off their 2010-11 cap number to put a full team on the ice next year; they have committed roughly $61 million to 15 players, and the cap is expected to end up somewhere between $56-58 million. Simple math indicates that the Hawks likely need to cut somewhere around $10 million off that payroll to afford a full roster next year. Below are the players that are signed through the 2010-11 season, and their respective cap numbers:
The players with an asterisk next to their cap numbers indicate that they are in the final year of their curent contract in the 2010-11 season. So the reality for the Blackhawks is that not only do they need to cut payroll off their 2010-11 books, but they have decisions to make with some current players, especially Seabrook, Byfuglien and Niklas Hjalmarsson (a restricted free agent after this season), during next year.
Earlier this year, we discussed how the NHL’s current collective bargaining agreement works with regard to buying out the contract of a veteran player. At that point, early in the season, buying out Campbell’s enormous contract was a point of interest. However, considering Campbell’s play since then, keeping him on the blue line despite his cap number seems to be a better idea than moving him for nothing. Indeed, even trading Campbell wouldn’t seem to be a great idea at this point because of how well Campbell’s been playing.
Considering the cost of replacing someone who is playing as well as Campbell is right now doesn’t even figure to be a likelyhood in respect to the escalating cost of elite defensemen in the NHL. Chris Pronger will be at $7.5M when his extension kicks in with Philadelphia next year, Zdeno Chara is making $7.5M, and Calgary’s duo of Jay Bouwmeester ($6.8M) and Dion Phaneuf ($6.6M) set the market for a top defenseman well above the cap number the Hawks will have for Keith moving forward. Reality seems to indicate that Campbell could be at or below market value within two or three years.
Because of the wild trade speculation in the NHL right now, and teams looking to get a lower cap number, including the Hawks, good players on the Chicago payroll have been linked in many rumors. Barker, Versteeg, Byfuglien, Sharp and Sopel have all been linked to various rumors, most recently with regard to a potential move that would rent Atlanta superstar forward Ilya Kovalchuk for the rest of this season.
On Wednesday, ESPN’s Pierre LeBrun wrotean article that looks at how the current CBA has impacted parity in the NHL, and how it has diminished the window to win for any team that puts together a great roster. Right now, the biggest team dealing with that reality is the Blackhawks, and when the cap is examined further it appears the Hawks have a limited horizon to win the Stanley Cup despite the extensions they have in place with some of their younger superstars. This school of thought is a driving force behind the speculation that the Hawks are the frontrunners for Kovalchuk, who reportedly will want to test free agency this summer and will want a deal in the neighborhood of $10M per season and around 10 years in length. Not many teams will want to part with a package close to what the Thrashers will want for one of the game’s top scoring forwards, only to have zero guarantees that they will be able to keep him after this season; the Blackhawks might not have a problem renting a player while moving payroll of their future books.
So how do the Blackhawks unload $10 million without devastating the current roster?
One route that might become a reality is buying out Huet. He’s statistically playing very well this year – he currently ranks fifth in the NHL allowing only 2.17 goals per game – but, because of his ups and downs might be easily replaced by Antti Niemi and a younger, cheaper netminder. The killer when the Hawks try to trade Huet, though, is the number of decent-to-good goaltenders that will be free agents this coming summer. Why would a team trade for Huet and pay him his cap number when they could sign someone like Martin Biron, Jonas Hiller, Dan Ellis, Ray Ellis, or make a qualifying offer for a player like Jaroslav Halak or Kari Lehtonen. We haven’t even mentioned older goaltenders like Marty Turco, Jose Theodore or Evgeni Nabokov yet, either. In all, there are 24 goaltenders that will be free agents this summer, only one of whom, Turco, has a higher cap number than Huet this year.
So trading Huet might not be an option. However, signing one of the 24 free agents might be, and the net cost of keeping Niemi and adding a free agent could be lower than just Huet by himself next year.
Thus, the buyout conversation begins.
If the Hawks decided to buy out Huet, they would be able to stretch out a percentage of what they owe him over a longer term. Without getting into the boring math of the discussion, the difference between Huet being on the payroll under his current contract and the financial implications of buying him out could mean the difference between keeping a player making $3 million and losing someone like Versteeg, Byfuglien or even Sharp.
Huet stands to make $5.625M for two more seasons. If the Hawks opted to buy him out, they would pay him $1.875M for four more years. Yes, the Blackhawks would have him on the payroll in 2012-13 and 13-14 under this scenario, but the organization would save $3.750M in each of the next two seasons by buying him out. Assuming the Hawks re-sign Niemi at a larger salary, and either (finally) promote Corey Crawford or sign a free agent, the total net cost for the Blackhawks to have two netminders could be under $2 million.
If the Blackhawks bought out Huet, they would need to only move roughly $6-7 million more off their payroll for next year. Trading a player like Sopel, who will make $2.333M, would make that number closer to $5M, which means moving only two more players would make the math work. Further considering the Hawks organizational depth, it’s realistic that Barker and Sopel could be replaced by Jordan Hendry and a prospect like Shawn LaLonde for significantly cheaper than the cost of the two veterans.
There will be trades, and next year’s Blackhawks might not look a lot like this year’s version. Bowman has the job of keeping the Hawks competitive in the future, and the first step in doing that might be buying out Huet.
In an article from The Fourth Period on Monday evening, reports are that the Atlanta Thrashers are still struggling to come to terms with star forward Ilya Kovalchuk, and that dealing him could become a reality soon.
The article points out that Kovalchuk and his agent are holding out for a top-tier deal; considering the career numbers and his age, 27, Kovalchuk has every right to ask for a big deal. Putting his pending free agency into perspective, other stars have recently received deals that exceed ten years. In Chicago, both Duncan Keith (13) and Marian Hossa (12) have contracts that will keep them in the United Center for over a decade, while stars Alexander Ovechkin (13) and Mike Richards (12) have also inked enormous contracts.
What’s more of an issue for Atlanta than the term of the deal appears to be Kovalchuk’s desire to be appropriately paid throughout the deal. TFP suggests that a 10-year, $100 million contract might be a baseline for negotiation, which could be a deal-breaker for a Thrashers franchise that has ownership and financial issues. As Kovalchuk can become an unrestricted free agent in July, there is certainly a reality that the Thrashers could lose their best player for nothing if they fail to reach an accord or make a trade.
If what TFP is suggesting is true, then the trade market for Kovalchuk could heat up quickly. The Blackhawks are listed as a potential suitor by most analysts, with a number of sites listing Chicago as the front-runner to acquire him. As reported on CommittedIndians previously, one scenario that has been rumored is a package including Kris Versteeg and Cam Barker heading to Atlanta in what would amount to a go-for-broke rental for the Blackhawks. With the Blackhawks needing to move salary off the books after this season, this would bring in an elite scorer and clean up the team’s balance sheet for 2010-11 simultaneously.
The million-dollar question for GM Stan Bowman and others inside the Hawks’ braintrust is whether or not they want to mess with the incredible chemistry on the young team during this season. Barker has missed a handful of games because on a recent injury, and Jordan Hendry has done a more-than-adequate job replacing Barker on the ice. But you can’t just bring in someone like Kovalchuk and slide him onto the third line; he’s one of the best scorers in the NHL. The dynamics of the Hawks’ offense would change dramatically with a move like this, and history has shown in every sport that a fantasy team on paper doesn’t guarantee a championship (2009 New York Yankees excluded).
As the Kovalchuk situation continues to evolve, and as long as the Blackhawks could be a partner in any deal that goes down, we’ll keep an eye on the situation.
