Dustin Byfuglien, Kris Versteeg, Andrew Ladd, Brent Sopel, John Madden, Ben Eager, Antti Niemi and Cristobal Huet.
That’s quite a talented group of depth players that would make a good team even better. Those are the players the Chicago Blackhawks will have to do without in 2010/11. Due to cap constraints, many contracts needed to be purged by Stan Bowman in order to stay under the salary cap. Most teams would be crippled by the loss of so many key components. Chicago is not like most teams.
Chicken Little cried that the sky was falling. In Chicago, the ceiling was high and it won’t fall far. Up front, there is still an embarrassment of riches. Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Marian Hossa, Patrick Sharp and Dave Bolland are a list of players that many teams would trade an entire minor league system to have. This team will not struggle to score goals with this group leading the way. A surprisingly middle of the pack PP (16th in 2009/10) won’t get worse.
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The defense returns the Norris Trophy winner from last season in Duncan Keith. The 27 year old will compete for more Norris Trophies and the team has him under contract through 2015. His partner Brent Seabrook plays a bruising style of defense and can add something to the PP with his booming slapshot. When a team’s second defense pairing makes a combined $11M in salary, you know they are stacked. Brian Campbell is a puck rushing defenseman who uses his offensive abilities to cover up most of his ‘offensive’ defense. Niklas Hjalmarsson was kept in-house when the Hawks matched the $14M offer sheet he signed with fellow Western Conference powerhouse, the San Jose Sharks.
Apart from the perceived lack of depth up front, the biggest question for this year’s Hawks will be in goal. Never in NHL history has a defending champion started the following season with neither of the goaltenders that were in uniform when they won the Stanley Cup that spring. Chicago walked away from Niemi’s arbitration award and signed Dallas castoff Marty Turco to a one year contract. He will backed up by Corey Crawford. The 25 year old has 8 career NHL games under his belt. He has been biding his time in the minors since Chicago drafted him in 2003. These two don’t need to carry the team anywhere, just play well enough to not lose the close games.
Despite the fact Chicago was forced to jettison so many players from their Stanley Cup team, they will still be a force in the Western Conference. A conference final visit shouldn’t surprise anyone.
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