The second of a 2-part series on the sad state of the Blackhawks. Yesterday, we examined the causes. Today we look at potential solutions.
What follows is not what I think the Hawks should do—rather a speculative best guess at what I think they might do this summer and going forward.
Also, I have not heard from any sources anything like this or that these are “the plans.” Rather, based on what I have heard and observed over the last 3-4 years, this is one, perhaps more extreme, path the Hawks could take.
And that is:
A total rebuild?
Not quite, but a significant paradigm shift—really voluntarily taking a step or two back in order to make a giant leap forward—and potentially back into Cup contention in a few years.
Could that happen? It would be a hard sell to many sponsors and fans. However, there are signs that both sponsorship and ticket resale demand is already softening dramatically, signs that go back to last year. Some will argue, as they did last year when I suggested this, that the season ticket waiting list is “as long as ever.” Well, if that is still true, then as bad as this current team is, then many of those diehard fans will hang on through thick and thin anyway. Right? Anyway . . .
Call the summer of 2017 the Soft Rebuild. Or Retool on the Fly, both terms I’ve used as have others. That’s what Stan Bowman seems to have tried to do. And, let’s face it, if you read Part I of this tome, and digested the harsh reality of a handful of big, nearly immoveable contracts doled out from 2013 to 2015, you know why Bowman’s hands have been essentially tied the last 2-3 years.
Now, here in January of 2018, as we look at a team struggling to stay in the playoff picture, we can at least speculate what this next summer might be called.
Hard Rebuild 1.0?
But first, every day reveals something more about this team and where it’s headed. Or not headed. Yesterday was the day that the cavalry was spotted coming over the horizon. Well, really it was just a goalie. Albeit a very good goalie. Who might have post-concussion syndrome, or might have vertigo, or both, or neither.
What we do know is he hasn’t played in just over a month. But building off a separate debate that raged yesterday, Corey Crawford is apparently “going to get this team into the playoffs.”
It all started when when one of the hockey experts on the Twitterz proclaimed Joel Quenneville is on the hot seat. Which is sorta like saying Donald Trump is under investigation by Robert Mueller. Anyway . . .
Then the Fire Q or Fire Bowman debate heated up.
Before I get into that here (and I will), let me remind everyone of something. Last night’s Hawk team, which lost it’s fourth game in a row on home ice, had a first line left wing who is barely out of junior, a first line right wing who was playing for Arizona two weeks ago, a top pairing defenseman who played in Edmonton last year and didn’t play for the Hawks until a handful of weeks ago, a 32 year old rookie, AHL journeyman goalie, and a handful of other players with a year or less NHL experience.
Which is why, at least in part, the Hawk power play and at times their play 5-on-5 looks like a rat game down at the local rink—versus, say, the layered attack and structure of teams like the Blues and the Lightning.
The Hawks not only lack talent and experience around the edges of the roster—they have lacked continuity and inculcation into a cohesive, disciplined hockey system for going on three years. Crawford may help—but only enough to temporarily obscure some other issues that aren’t going away.
Sure, all teams have to improvise in the age of the hard cap. But few, if any, have been forced to do so more than the Hawks, precisely because of the aforementioned contracts.
So you can maybe blame Joel Quenneville some (“he’s stubborn and he doesn’t handle young layers well”) or you can blame Bowman (“who handed out those contracts?”), or both of them—and maybe some others.
But let’s assume (likely safely) the Hawks either miss the playoffs or (at best) get bumped out in the first round again.
The core is all a year older, with Jonathan Toews turning 30, Corey Crawford, Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook all pushing well into their 30s. Marian Hossa has likely played his last hockey in the NHL.
The notion that what’s coming out of the Hawk minor league and prospect pipeline (including Alex DeBrincat, Henri Jokiharju and Dylan Sikura) is going to fully replace players of that caliber and pedigree is, with all due respect, probably wishful thinking at best.
As it stands today, looking forward, Bowman and the Hawks will have some very hard choices to make—likely without the cap room to meaningfully add to what they have and change the trajectory of the team.
But before you build a house, you need to lay a solid foundation. And before that, you need the right design, one that’s executable.
So the first question, before you make any moves at all, is whether Stan Bowman is the right man to guide a rebuild.
Put another way, the guy with the right answers had better fully understand and accept what the problems are.
There lies the concern with Bowman. His thumbprints (and those of others in the crowded front office at 1901 W. Madison Street) are all over this mess.
Just my hard opinion, but it seems to me that the first thing you want to hear from Bowman if you’re John McDonough is an acknowledgement that some things have not worked out well, major change is needed—and there will be no sacred cows. If you get that from him, and you think he really means it, then you could do worse than a legitimate NHL GM with his experience.
That said, perhaps the baggage of the last several years is just too heavy and it’s time for a fresh start with a new GM.
But I will add a cautionary note. Replacing Bowman might not replace the “problem” with the Hawks front office. The aforementioned albatross contracts were not conceived and handed out by Bowman in a vacuum. And perhaps, that’s where Rocky Wirtz may need to make some hard decisions as well.
Regardless, change is needed—from the top down.
So whether you have the old GM with a new outlook or a new GM, then you look at the coaching staff.
First, I would not make any move there until after this season ends. Not unless the situation in the dressing room became incredibly toxic and immediate change was necessitated.
That doesn’t appear likely. Whether the rumors that Joel Quenneville has lost the room are fully true or not, I have heard for the last several years that certain veteran players have a deep loyalty to Q.
The only other scenario where a change might be warranted now would be if you felt Kevin Dineen or Ulf Samuelsson or Don Granato should be your head coach for the next several years—and that a change right now would jumpstart the team and really turn things around. The problem is, it’s hard to think Samuelsson or Dineen have some magic that hasn’t already been tried.
So wait til the offseason.
I heard a lot yesterday from some how firing Q might “save the season and get the Hawks into the playoffs.”
Well, if that unlikely outcome were to happen, what would it accomplish—another first round out and likely masking the real issue(s)—the roster, the contracts, and the need for hard, unpleasant decisions.
All that said . . .
It would seem to me that, if you’re going to go into a hard rebuild, it might make sense to offer Q another job in the organization, give him a highly respectful send-off and start fresh with a new head coach.
It’s not an apples to apples analogue, but to my mind, you’d want to find a guy who could shepherd things along in a manner not unlike the job being done in Vegas right now by Gerard Gallant.
Because here’s the thing: you’re not starting over with 23 rookies (God Forbid). Which leads to the players.
Clearly, since Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews signed their twin deals in September 2015, their careers have diverged. Kane maintains an elite level of scoring and dynamism. Toews has become more of an enigma, if not a disappointment, more Michael Peca than Mark Messier. Still a very good player, but also not worth $10.5 million a year on a cap-strapped team.
But here’s another way of looking at that. What is Toews’ experience and leadership worth on a rebuilding team that doesn’t have cap issues? I would argue, it could be quite high.
The other thing to consider is that a rebuild is going to be a very tough pill to swallow financially for the Hawks. And to deliver to the fanbase.
Having Kane and Toews as the enthusiastic centerpieces of the rebuild, at 29 and 30 respectively, actually makes a lot of sense, on and off the ice.
So that’s where I’d start.
From the remaining roster, there are a handful of talented, young players who are cost-controlled that’ I’d keep around for a while at least—Brandon Saad, Connor Murphy, Nick Schmaltz. Perhaps Jordan Oesterle enters this conversation. 2017 first round pick Jokiharju appears to have the potential to be a special player.
And in that sense, with those pieces in place, this is not a total tear down. But hard decisions and sacrifice still remain.
You have some different decisions to make.
You might need a franchise goalie, because the one you have at present, may have a career-ending or career-limiting injury.
Who knows right now? Everyone has an opinion and “confirmation.” I can confirm, few people outside the organization know anything for sure.
Let that sink in.
When/if a player misses at least a month and a half with vertigo or worse still, post-concussion symptoms, that does not bode well for a long-term career. See: Hiller, Jonas, for one.
Regardless, and I’m still not sure what to believe on that front, my spidey sense is Corey Crawford’s days in Chicago may be numbered. On top of that, likely neither Anton Forsberg nor Jeff Glass, nor anyone in the Hawks’ entire system right now, is his replacement.
And even if you do keep Crawford, how many years is it before a high-paid, veteran goalie of his caliber is really relevant in a rebuild?
Beyond that, you desperately need more young, potentially franchise quality players brought into your organization.
Because the next tier of players from the current roster —who are young and hold some promise, but are not franchise potential players by any stretch—need to be considered.
It’s possible, I guess, that a Debrincat or a Gustav Forsling could someday , somehow evolve into a special player. But the current weight of evidence suggests it’s very unlikely.
Forsling may end up being an OK second pairing defenseman (as might Jan Rutta) but neither are really special players.
DeBrincat has a deceptively quick shot and he can make some nifty little passes—but he doesn’t really create any offense for himself. To be productive in the NHL, he’ll probably always need someone to go get pucks for him and to deliver the puck to him.
And as a shooter, his best asset, he’s not really in the class of a Patrik Laine or a Vladimir Tarasenko. Who are potential or actual franchise players.
Put Ryan Hartman, Anthony Duclair and Rutta in this category as well: guys who you might want to keep around to see what they develop into, or you might want to sell off for picks or prospects if some other team values them more than you do.
Because picks and prospects—good ones—are something the Hawks are going to need a lot of in a meaningful rebuild.
Which leads to the dispensation of Crawford, Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook, Artem Anisimov and the contract of Marian Hossa.
First, it is unwieldy and challenging to have to continually re-address Hossa’s LTIR and cap hit for each of the next three seasons. Because per the CBA, you can’t just permanently LTIR him and use the money on a 3 year contract for someone else.
So the optimal solution is one where you deal Hossa’s contract, as deflating as it might be in terms of his Hawk legacy, to a cap floor team. And you’ll have to give that team some enticement to take it on. Cap gained, but quality young talent lost.
Anisimov might also fall into that previous category of a guy you’re better off holding on to than dealing—depends on what someone else would offer and if you could get him to waive. Or not.
If a team were looking for that kind of guy at the trade deadline, this year or next, you might get a nice return on him.
Setting aside the mystery of Crawford’s actual “injury,” if/when he’s healthy, there are a number of ways you can go with him.
If the Hawks do rebuild, do you need a $6 million a year goalie for the next 2-3 seasons? Well, if you started with an essentially clean slate like Vegas did last year, and you could go pick off bargains here and there, maybe you could jump back into contention fast with Crawford.
The problem is, the Hawks will not have a clean slate to start. More on that in a second. They’ll need high picks and quality prospects.
So bookmark that.
Then there’s Seabrook. You might be able to send him and his contract to, say, his hometown of Vancouver. But it will cost you DeBrincat or Sikura or more to get a Jim Benning to swallow the last several years of Seabrook’s deal. See: the now ill-fated Bryan Bickell/Teuvo Teravainen deal of 2016.
Then again, there’s a possibility that with a new CBA in 2020, there will be compliance buyouts again, a way the Hawks— or a team Seabrook might be dealt to— could rid themselves of the contract. But that is far from guaranteed at present. There is also the hard financial pill of just plain buying out the last several years of Seabrook’s deal and carrying a few million dollars in dead cap space over that time.
But, do the math
At what point does the upside of what you can do with the portion of cap space recouped exceed Seabrook’s remaining value on the ice? So a straight buyout, also, is more and more a possibility over the next couple of years.
But assuming Seabrook and Toews are still around, at least for a while, where does the juice for a rebuild—the multiple high picks and prospects—come from?
You might sort of get that from dealing Anisimov. You probably could get a little of that from dealing Crawford. And you would likely get it from dealing Duncan Keith.
Assuming you got Keith to waive (which is possible), there could be a significant market for a player of his profile and accomplishments—especially at this or next year’s trade deadline.
Sure, he’ll be 34-35 years old. But in spite of the chorus that he now “sucks,” physically, he looks a lot better this year after battling a knee issue the previous year plus. He is a genetic freak of nature. He’s affordable at $5.5 million per year—a huge value in fact.
And yes, the cap recapture issue enters in. However, it is quite conceivable Keith will play out his deal to age 39.
And he potentially takes the right team, like, say, the Columbus Blue Jackets, from being a good to a great team.
What could you get for Keith? At the March trade deadline, which is always a seller’s market, the price would be a first round pick (potentially top 15), a solid young NHL player, and a good prospect (minimum).
Let me also add—and this is just my opinion—the best prospect the Hawks have right now is a guy who possibly, potentially replaces Keith—Jokiharju.
So, what is this Resurrection in broad terms?
- Put the right executive leadership in place to rebuild—coach, GM, even Team President—but do not maintain the current inertia or status quo
- Use the current cornerstones—Kane and Toews—to sell the rebuild publicly, lead it in the dressing room, and as much as they can on the ice
- Acknowledge it’s a rebuild, a “fresh start,” whatever, and make the hard choices necessary. You will not just “make the playoffs” for a couple of years—in order to potentially dominate them again at some point
- Which means, finding a way out of Seabrook’s contract, potentially dealing Crawford and Keith and Anisimov for the highest possible returns
- Consider who among your young players are worth holding on to or dealing for picks/prospects
But that’s me, paraphrasing Dewey Oxberger in Stripes: “Mr. Vegas.”
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