I’ll say it: the Blackhawks owe their fans better
Let me be clear, I’m not talking about the players, or perhaps even the coaches. I’m talking about the combined (and I use that word intentionally) machinery of the Hawk front office and the marketing department.
In fact, I’m talking to them.
You’ve raised ticket prices year after year, promising “One Goal”—with the clear implication that the stated “goal” was a Stanley Cup. The prices are still sky high, but the goal now seems to be “maybe making the playoffs, if our mysteriously injured, 34 year old goalie can play 60-65 games.”
Too many fans still voraciously swallow the bait this organization lays out via beat reporters and well-scripted and rehearsed Stan Bowman pressers. And quite frankly, I’m not writing this screed on behalf of them either.
I am writing it on behalf of the fans who passionately followed a pretty good team in the late 80s and early 90s that eventually slid into a long mediocrity—many of whom go back to the epic battles in the Old Barn between the Hawks and Bruins in 1969.
The fans that saw Jeremy Roenick traded for Alex Zhamnov—who the fans were promised then would be a “magical” player in Chicago.
Who lived through the internecine drama of Peter Wirtz and Dale Tallon vs. Bob Pulford and Brian Sutter. Who well remember the “glory days” of Alexander Karpovtsev (may he rest in peace), Igor Korolev, Enrico Ciccone, Jayson More, Chad Kilger (let me know when you want me to stop), Michal Grosek, Steve Passmore, Jim Vandermeer, etc., etc., etc.
Listen, I fully get that every dynasty has to end. That 3 Cups in 6 years was a lot. But somehow, with Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane barely 30 and 29 respectively, with the tremendous stockpile of young talent the Hawks had in 2010, the end should not have come so quickly and so painfully.
And I do, even though math is not my strong suit, get the realities of the salary cap (because it doesn’t take a brain surgeon either). But that said, it isn’t like every cap cutting move the Hawks have made since (and especially including) the summer of 2010 was all that great—regardless of the circumstances.
This is where interwebz message board truisms have eventually overwhelmed fact and common sense.
“Tallon mismanaged the cap. Bowman got stuck with his mess.”
Really? What was Bowman’s actual job before John McDonough allegedly decided Tallon was a bit too independent for his tastes and wanted a GM who could function within his “corporate” vision of an NHL hockey operation?
The day the infamous RFA offer sheets were faxed out? I was told a few years ago, Tallon was out sick. True? I don’t know. Either way, the actual truth is oftentimes surprising. And we can relegate history til the cows come home. But the real point is this:
The Hawks ended 2017-18 near the bottom of a three-year slide out of contention in the Western Conference.
Give this front office credit. They have seized the opportunity the apologists have given them with the argument that “dis wassss a playoff team wit Crow.”
But, no it wasn’t. This was a bad team
So when the shopping list going into the offseason should have listed a top 4 defenseman, a center, and a backup goalie, all we got was a backup goalie who will quite possibly need to be the #1 (the team knows this full well, which is why Cam Ward got a NMC and last year’s salary before UFA even began), Brandon Manning and the 38 year old shell of what was once Chris Kunitz.
And, today, Stan Bowman likes his team, some have ordained Henri Jokiharju as this year’s “prospect who must be rushed to the NHL immediately,” and the rest of us are sitting here holding a leaky bag of “WTF?”
The Hawks owe us better. They owe us honesty. They owe us, as I and others have been insisting for months, some kind of actual plan. Instead, we have gotten what I dubbed about a week or so ago, the “Silent Rebuild.”
And trust me, they know what they’re doing. This isn’t all just happenstance. The Hawks are continuing the same approach they have taken the previous two summers to this one—minor moves around the edges of the roster, draft as well as you can, build hope (some might say “hype”) for the future, while continuing to suggest you intend to contend this year.
The problem is, while ostensibly it keeps fan interest just high enough in terms of short-term revenue, that strategy has always been flawed, and surprisingly few fans (although there are some) are still buying in.
If Kunitz, like Patrick Sharp last year, was being signed as a 13th forward to augment a great, contending corps, finet. But the truth is, his signing smacks (smells, actually) of the worst kind of cynicism of the Pulford Era. I can just hear Uncle Pully right now, mumbling some crap about grit and experience. “Just sign a few guys, hell, if they aren’t good expenditures, figure it out later, let’s knock off at 4, I’m buying.”
Meanwhile the Hawk Hype machine is cranked to 11 over #8 overall selection Adam Boqvist. Perhaps with good reason. If he continues to grow physically and can avoid any further concussions, the guy is going to be a star in the NHL. Great. But that will likely happen when Toews is around 33 or 34, Kane 32 or 33, wen Duncan Keith is nearing the end of the line and Brent Seabrook is in a wheelchair.
That’s the issue. This organization threw big money around after the 2013 and 2015 Cups, big money with a lot of no-movement clauses attached to it. And let me be clear. In so doing, they made a commitment not just to the players who received the contracts—but to the fans that these players would form a competitive core for years to come, if not the entire terms of said contracts. And what that also meant—what that should mean—is that the team and the cap would be managed in such a way as to optimize that core.
Fans pay the players’ (and GMs’) salaries. You buy the gear. You watch the games and suffer through the ridiculously dopey Chevy dealer spots. You pay $350 for a seat at the UC, you have a right to expect something of value in return.
Instead, we got a lucrative long-term deal with an NMC attached to it handed to Artem Anisimov a full year before his current deal expired—and before he ever played a game in Chicago. This, to a guy who had never come close to 50% in the faceoff dot and has always had speed (or a lack thereof) that led previous coaches to question whether he was in fact a top 6 center or a third line left wing.
Now, the evidence is beginning to suggest, the team can’t give Anisimov away. Hmmmm.
Speaking of which, Seabrook’s contract (more often than not associated with the word “albatross”) was awarded with an NMC for all but the last two years—and handed out a year before his previous deal expired.
Ditto Kane and Toews’ collective $21 million a year against the cap.
So what did this team do this summer? Bowman pushed away from the table with Kunitz, Manning and Ward—saying he was reserving his cap space (much of which recouped through dealing Niklas Hjalmarsson and Artemi Panarin last summer) so he would have money to extend Nick Schmaltz and Alex DeBrincat on their next contracts.
What could be more motivating to a guy like Schmaltz—who clearly needs to be chained to a barbell this summer—than to hear (publicly!) a big payday is coming his way regardless. A “center” who barely broke 40% in the dot last year.
I know, I know, “faceoffs are overrated.” Except they’re not.
And a center who gets pasted to the boards and completely neutralized by the likes of Alex Pietrangelo in big games is not going to get you far in the playoffs in the Central Division, no matter how much his skating makes you “ooooh” and “ahhh.”
Think about it: we’re not talking about proven young stars like Vladimir Tarasenko or Patrik Laine here. Bowman is yet again doubling down on “his guys” before they’ve done very much in the Indianhead, or in the case of Schmaltz and DeBrincat, pro hockey in general.
Yeah, I know Cat scored some goals last year. And I like him as a player going forward. But he’s one guy and he has some holes in hs game at this point as well.
At this point, with several tens of millions of dollars locked up in an aging core, Bowman is telling you the future is not now. It’s at some point down the line with a lot of very small, not fully developed players, but we’ll still be just fine this year because . . . “Kunitz and Crow!”
Sure, my feed even this morning features the optimism of fans suggesting Bowman can’t be done yet with his offseason work. But the days are peeling off the July calendar, and more than one significant hole remains.
Even if you don’t realize it, you, the fans, deserve much better.
Comment below. Follow @jaeckel