The Blackhawks released information on their injured players this morning and it cleared up some questions regarding the availability of some key players for this season, but caused some more speculation about the murky future of at least one Blackhawks locker room leader.
MEDICAL UPDATES:
• Saad (right ankle) out 3 weeks
• de Haan (right shoulder) & Seabrook (right shoulder) to both undergo surgery, miss remainder of 2019-20 season
• Seabrook also to undergo surgery on each hip in 2020
• de Haan, Seabrook placed on LTIR#Blackhawks— Chicago Blackhawks (@NHLBlackhawks) December 26, 2019
First of all, the team announced that Brandon Saad would be out for three weeks with a right ankle injury, which is actually good news for Saad and the team based on what could have ended up being a much more severe injury.
Despite the good news for the forwards, the Blackhawks defense took a big hit as the team announced that Brent Seabrook and Calvin de Haan will both undergo right shoulder surgery tomorrow, December 27, 2019. Both players will miss the remainder of the 2019-20 season, and could potentially be out even longer. As a result, Seabrook and de Haan have both been place on long term injured reserve.
De Haan was acquired on June 24, 2019 with Aleksi Saarela, for the RFA rights to Anton Forsberg and Gustav Forsling. At the time of his injury he was one of the top defenders for the team. He is signed for two more years with an annual cap hit of $4.550 million.
Seabrook will also undergo surgery on both hips, one in January and the other in February, which could potentially combine with his shoulder issue to put an end to his Blackhawks career. His heavily debated contract has four years remaining at an annual cap hit of $6.875 million.
The Blackhawks will face the New York Islanders tomorrow night at the United Center and puck drop is scheduled for 7:35 pm.
Can exceed cap by 11.425M + $5.4M for Caggiula/Shaw while those two are out.
Since they’ll be over cap for year, any performance bonuses earned will carry over as cap hit for following year. With bonuses for Dach, Strome, DeBrincat likely, may not want to exceed cap & use LTIR
— PuckPedia (@PuckPedia) December 26, 2019