How would you realistically fix the Hawks?

The "fix" for this team is to embrace the Theo Epstein Cubs' model, i.e., embrace the suck. Bye bye core, run of a lifetime but this is business.

Obviously we have several large, negative value contracts - i would retain portions of those salaries and ship them out for draft picks.

If done properly we can once again challenge for the Cup in 3 years.

McDonough has hinted that if the season does not go well, changes will be made and I think those have to start at the top with Bowman. If he is in fact gone, four GM candidates I would love to see at least get an interview would be Julien BriseBois, Tom Fitzgerald, Michael Futa, and Bill Guerin.

In terms of Q, I think ownership would leave it up to the new GM to decide his fate. Some coaching candidates I like are Sheldon Keefe, Todd Reirden, Ulf Samuelsson, Scott Sandelin, and D.J. Smith. If I had to choose, I'd pick BriseBois as GM and Reirden/Smith as HC.

dreadpirateroberts said:

McDonough has hinted that if the season does not go well, changes will be made and I think those have to start at the top with Bowman. If he is in fact gone, four GM candidates I would love to see at least get an interview would be Julien BriseBois, Tom Fitzgerald, Michael Futa, and Bill Guerin.

In terms of Q, I think ownership would leave it up to the new GM to decide his fate. Some coaching candidates I like are Sheldon Keefe, Todd Reirden, Ulf Samuelsson, Scott Sandelin, and D.J. Smith. If I had to choose, I'd pick BriseBois as GM and Reirden/Smith as HC.

Click to expand...

I think Bowmans pick is/was Ulf Samuelsson, and we see how that worked out with our D core this year. Dont think that changes much if Q leaves, just makes it worse.

Bowman is trying to kiss up by fixing his fuck ups, but he ends up making bigger fuck ups. What happens if he does take the deal by actually sending Saad for the Darling / Faulk deal when Faulk is slated to make 6 million this and next year he is still spending 4 million more.

Big question lies in will Crawford ever be the same?

anotheridiot said:

The Panarin deal was the main head scratcher. The new core could have been Panarin, Schmaltz, Hino, Hartzy, Cat. Tack on Edjsell with that group.

I could have gotten all these moves if it was a dump of salary and then a reduced cost guy EARNING that role. But even dollars Panarin and Saad, even dollars Hammer and Murphy was what deserved to get Bowman canned.

Who cares if the best Toews can do is third line center? Well, Q cares.

Basically, its a crap shoot with this team, Bowman trades guys because they will cost too much in 2020, Q does not play guys and part of it is me thinking that its because they are going to cost too much to keep if they show too much.

You adjust Rutta and Joker as top d men and will seabs and keith be split to the second and third lines?

That to me is the biggest problem, not allowing spots to be earned. You dont want Toews and Kane playing together, then put Kane on the top line.

Click to expand...

At the time the idea was that Kane couple produce with anybody. I mean, he was on an Art Ross Trajectory with geriatric Brad Richards, Patrick Sharp, and a spattering of Verturnover in there. Couple that with the fact that (a) Toews had chemistry with Saad in the past (even though Ladd should have been a warning that may not be the case), (b) Saad's deal was 6M for a longer duration, while Panarin in the not to distant futer could command 8+ while Saad's cap is controlled, and (c) You do want to get a 10.5M player going and producing rather than relegating them to overpaid duties. Some did have the inkling that the problem with Toews was indeed Toews, but who could have predicted how badly Saad himself would have done?

As for Hjammer? I don't necessarily think he for Murph was a win or a loss yet, but consider that Hjammer was of-injured for AZ. The guy has played a ton of grueling hockey. Hjammer played 48 games...contrast to the 27 games Crawford started and the 35 total that elapsed between the beginning of the year and Crawford being out. He wouldn't have been much of a factor.

I'm not saying I like the trades, but I understand them...and you have to couple that with how badly Q used and abused players this past season. This season in-and-of-itself was a Mongolian clusterfuck from head-to-Toews (insert groans here).

Not to mention Rutta and The Joker are both righties. The Joker would need a lefty. Kempny wqould have been ideal...but we all know how that went. :smh:

I do think though that this season is Stan & Q's swan song, though. It should have been last year, but I think some people who's opinions actually matter think Crawford's loss was the reason for the bad year; as opposed to losing him unmasked the issues from within.

RacerX said:

The "fix" for this team is to embrace the Theo Epstein Cubs' model, i.e., embrace the suck. Bye bye core, run of a lifetime but this is business.

Obviously we have several large, negative value contracts - i would retain portions of those salaries and ship them out for draft picks.

If done properly we can once again challenge for the Cup in 3 years.

Click to expand...

Not if you follow the CBA rules:

Most of our high-priced contracts have NMC's attached or at best, a L-NTC to go with it (Except Saad). They aren't going anywhere unless they want to go anywhere.
Teams can only retain only 50% of a contract. Ergo, you're only saving 5.25M a piece on Toews and Kane.
Teams retaining still pay actual dollars as well as cap, so Rocky is still on the hook for actual cap money--i.e. even though Toews and Kane will take 10.5M of cap, Rocky would be paying half of their 12M salaries.
The RSA% has to match both cap hit and absolute dollars. So, the 'hawks can't say they'll retain 33% of the cap hit and 50% of the actual salary.
Teams can only have 3 RSAs per year. So between Toews, Kane, Seabrook, Keith (special case) Saad, and Muphy, choose three max.
Teams cannot RSA more than 15% of the cap ceiling in any given year. At 2018 Cap, That means you can RSA Toews an Kane at the full 50%...but the 3rd contract? yeah, we could only retain 750k of it.
RSA contracts cannot be transferred; the 'hawks would be paying for Toews, Kane, Keith, and Seabrook until 2023/2024--regardless if they are re-traded or not. Unlike Hossa's recapture, we're stuck with that cap hit and that real salary expenditure.
RSA applies no matter where a player plays. If we, say, RSA Toews to Winnipeg, and they demote him to the Moose, we're still paying his full RSA.
All teams involved in a retained salary transaction will have cap implications if the contract is bought out or terminated. That could severely hurt the 'hawks.
In Keith's case, he like Hossa is a Recapture risk. He officially retires, and the 'hawks are on the hook for his cap advantage (i don't think RSA matters at that point)--which is 4M per.

And onto the practical side of things--teams don't trade valuable draft picks for negative value players. You're not getting a 1st rounder for anyone on the roster except *maybe* Kane...and even then I doubt it's going to be for a top-10 pick. Where's the cap coming back? Yoiu're not going to find a team that can willingly swallow up to 10.5M in cap without sending something back in return--and given the play of the skater core, that which would hypothetically come back would be rubbish--like "cannot move them because the suck as hard as Paris Hilton trying to get out of a DUI" rubbish.

And lastly, between the building of the current core and winning a cup it took 8 years. Keith, arguably *the* lynchpin of all of our cup runs, was drafted in 2002. Being a studly defenseman in his prime, his successor is going to take about that long to season. You want a #1 D-man within the next 3 years? We're going to be paying a ton for one.

I don't necessarily disagree with a few down years--I don't think the core can be fixed but I think we're stuck with them. Use them as mentors for the next class--guys like El Gato and the Joker. Have them bring them along so when TKKS are off the books, our next gen should be hitting their stride. That's not going to be a 3-year turnaround--and putting the kids at point with our core as backup would both embrace the suck and start weeding out those kids without potential.

Bowman resigns Hayden for 2 years 750 per year cap hit. I guess if they kept him up here last season he would have needed a million per to stay?

Vinnie gets 2 years as well, no mention of cap hit with him thought.

anotheridiot said:

Bowman resigns Hayden for 2 years 750 per year cap hit. I guess if they kept him up here last season he would have needed a million per to stay?

Click to expand...

Bowman resigned...Holy shit great news, deserves it's own thread though doesn't it idiot?

I keep reading news that the Hawks will "trade" Hossa to a team wanting to get to the cap floor in order to free up cap space...

Some team would really trade for a player who has already said he is done with pro hockey?

GTFO, it's almost as bad as people saying the Hawks are going after Tavares...it ain't happenin'...

I'd love Tavares to replace AA (or Toews honestly), but that means you have to find a trade partner who wants him, and you know you're still gonna be on the hook for part of his salary (probably the max of half).

I don't think there is a quick fix for our situation, Stan signed some guys based on passed performance instead of projected performance. I mean the Towes and Kane deals were kind of like being stuck between a rock and a hard place at the time. Kudos to their agents I guess. The only really awful one was/is Seabrook. That one was weird to me...well so was trading Panarin for Saad when you already had the Breadman signed for two years.

I guess the short of it is, you reap what you sow... and we got three cups - not too shabby.

The cap floor was what got soup out of here when they gave him that terrible 7 million dollar contract and yes, there are teams still out there that want to develop their guys making minimum and wanting to do it on the NHL ice, so they would prefer a no show over Seabrook. The only other way they want a "buyout" deal is they get return in picks or young players. The only other case is if you take a superstar that will put some fans in the seats in your arena.

I just really dont know how it will work. The rules were changed and the hawks got put in the shit house for the Hossa and Keith contract terms. Shit house that changed the rules on how these deals now get written.

darkvirage said:

I keep reading news that the Hawks will "trade" Hossa to a team wanting to get to the cap floor in order to free up cap space...

Some team would really trade for a player who has already said he is done with pro hockey?

GTFO, it's almost as bad as people saying the Hawks are going after Tavares...it ain't happenin'...

I'd love Tavares to replace AA (or Toews honestly), but that means you have to find a trade partner who wants him, and you know you're still gonna be on the hook for part of his salary (probably the max of half).

I don't think there is a quick fix for our situation, Stan signed some guys based on passed performance instead of projected performance. I mean the Towes and Kane deals were kind of like being stuck between a rock and a hard place at the time. Kudos to their agents I guess. The only really awful one was/is Seabrook. That one was weird to me...well so was trading Panarin for Saad when you already had the Breadman signed for two years.

I guess the short of it is, you reap what you sow... and we got three cups - not too shabby.

Click to expand...

Yes...and it's happened before: Datsyuk, Pronger, and I think a couple of other players.

Hossa's contract was signed before the last CBA, which meant player could have contracts longer than 7-8 years, Player contracts which could vary from mote than 35% year-to-tear and contracts that can be more than 50% between years. Hossa's starting price was 7.9M, and the price from this past year until 2021 was 1M. Over the course of his contract it averaged out to 5.275M/year, which is his cap hit.

Teams like Arizona usually have an internal budget significantly less than the cap ceiling in any given year, and the NHL has a salary cap floor (which was 55.4M this past season). Taking on a contract, like Hossa's, Datsyuk's, Pronger's, etc. makes some sense to those teams because, in Hossa's case, they only have to pay 1M in salary, but they have 5.275M towards the cap, which means they can spend less than the floor in total and still be cap compliant.

I agree Tavares is wishful thinking, but there is precedent for Hossa being traded to a cash-strapped team.

I'm always more on the optimistic side of things, but I still believe this group has another Cup run left. They have a Kane and a Crawford (let's just assum ehe's going to be healthy for argument's sake), which puts them ahead of the majority of NHL teams.

I think the forward group is very good. Brandon Saad is going to bounce back from a season that looked like a statistic anomaly to me. Kane's still incredibly good. Toews can still do enough to contribute (not up to a $10.5m cap hit but that ship's sailed). Schmaltz and DeBrincat are only getting better and I'm excited to see how much of a leap forward they can take. I think Hinostroza can be similar to Andrew Shaw in that he can help out in the Top 6 from time to time but is best-served playing on the third line.

Defense is where things get sketchy. Duncan Keith is still good, but probably not quite great anymore. Brent Seabrook can be serviceable on a third pairing. Outside of that are a lot of question marks. i'm intrigued by a Murphy/Gustafsson pairing, but both will need to play better if they want to be considered a true top-four pairing. The Blackhawks seem convinced that guys like Gustav Forsling and Carl Dahlstrom can make the leap to quality NHLers this season. I have my doubts. If they (or someone else in the system) makes that leap, then the Hawks could be in a real good place. If not, they're probably fucked.

And since they just added even more D-men to the system, you could see some other prospects (Krys, Mitchell) getting packaged as part of a deal to bring a proven top-four defensemen into the mix. They could certainly use one.

DMelt36 said:

I'm always more on the optimistic side of things, but I still believe this group has another Cup run left. They have a Kane and a Crawford (let's just assum ehe's going to be healthy for argument's sake), which puts them ahead of the majority of NHL teams.

I think the forward group is very good. Brandon Saad is going to bounce back from a season that looked like a statistic anomaly to me. Kane's still incredibly good. Toews can still do enough to contribute (not up to a $10.5m cap hit but that ship's sailed). Schmaltz and DeBrincat are only getting better and I'm excited to see how much of a leap forward they can take. I think Hinostroza can be similar to Andrew Shaw in that he can help out in the Top 6 from time to time but is best-served playing on the third line.

Defense is where things get sketchy. Duncan Keith is still good, but probably not quite great anymore. Brent Seabrook can be serviceable on a third pairing. Outside of that are a lot of question marks. i'm intrigued by a Murphy/Gustafsson pairing, but both will need to play better if they want to be considered a true top-four pairing. The Blackhawks seem convinced that guys like Gustav Forsling and Carl Dahlstrom can make the leap to quality NHLers this season. I have my doubts. If they (or someone else in the system) makes that leap, then the Hawks could be in a real good place. If not, they're probably fucked.

And since they just added even more D-men to the system, you could see some other prospects (Krys, Mitchell) getting packaged as part of a deal to bring a proven top-four defensemen into the mix. They could certainly use one.

Click to expand...

Keith is not good anymore. -29 is good in no universe and he was a liability last season. He was one of the best...now? he should be playing no higher than Slot-4.

There are no guarantees on Saad. He could bounce back like Hossa or he could remain mediocre like Toews.

Speaking of Hossa...we have no replacement for him--not even in part.

We also have no replacement for Hjammer on D.

Kane+Crawford+El Gato+Schmaltz is not going to carry Toews, Keith, and Seabrook to another cup. You're going to need some divine intervention at defense--and our D prospects, if they make it to that level, are years away.

LordKOTL said:

Keith is not good anymore. -29 is good in no universe and he was a liability last season. He was one of the best...now? he should be playing no higher than Slot-4.

There are no guarantees on Saad. He could bounce back like Hossa or he could remain mediocre like Toews.

Speaking of Hossa...we have no replacement for him--not even in part.

We also have no replacement for Hjammer on D.

Kane+Crawford+El Gato+Schmaltz is not going to carry Toews, Keith, and Seabrook to another cup. You're going to need some divine intervention at defense--and our D prospects, if they make it to that level, are years away.

Click to expand...

A minus-29 rating is terrible, yes. Let's not act like the guy in net behind Keith did him any favors this season, though. I still maintain Keith can be OK in your Top 4. No longer the shutdown guy he used to be, unfortunately.

No guarantees on Saad, of course. But one rough season after five increasingly good seasons is why I'm a believer that 2017-18 will be just a bump in the road for him.

No, the Hawks haven't replaced Hossa because they don't have any other RWs like him. Few exist in the history of the game. And when you say there was no replacing Hjammer, you mean the 2013-15 version and not the one that wasn't really all that good in 2016-17. They've never really replaced the 2013-15 version of Oduya, either.

Like I said, a lot of things have to go right. I'm not counting on it anymore. But I'm not ruling it out. Not this group.

DMelt36 said:

A minus-29 rating is terrible, yes. Let's not act like the guy in net behind Keith did him any favors this season, though. I still maintain Keith can be OK in your Top 4. No longer the shutdown guy he used to be, unfortunately.

No guarantees on Saad, of course. But one rough season after five increasingly good seasons is why I'm a believer that 2017-18 will be just a bump in the road for him.

No, the Hawks haven't replaced Hossa because they don't have any other RWs like him. Few exist in the history of the game. And when you say there was no replacing Hjammer, you mean the 2013-15 version and not the one that wasn't really all that good in 2016-17. They've never really replaced the 2013-15 version of Oduya, either.

Like I said, a lot of things have to go right. I'm not counting on it anymore. But I'm not ruling it out. Not this group.

Click to expand...

The issue with Keith was that he sucked even with Crawford carrying the team...in fact, he was one of the only - d men when he went down.

The main guy behind him bailed him up to -7 at Christmas time. Thats bad.

4 is probably his limit. But, we needed Conn Smythe Keith for the last cup; we got a worse verson of the 2006 rookie Keith now.

We got holes in our roster bigger than Goatse.cx. I don't think this group wins another unless we got someone else driving.

Sent from my HTC U11 using Tapatalk

Melt love the optimism, but this team as constructed is not a Cup Contender. Fringe playoff team yes.

To many issues on the back end. Have 0 idea if Crow will be ready to go, after that the Goalie depth is questionable at best. Not enough fire power in the top 6. Bottom 6 lacks depth, and impact bottom 6 type guys.

Realistically we have 3 players that I feel are core pieces. D-Cat, Kane, Schmaltz.

This is no knock on Keith, toews, Saad, and Seabrook but they have all seen better days, and I really don't see them getting back to their numbers or play they had in Cup runs.

We should rebuild, there are a lot of interesting young pieces on the roster, and in the pipe.

Bigfoot said:

Melt love the optimism, but this team as constructed is not a Cup Contender. Fringe playoff team yes.

To many issues on the back end. Have 0 idea if Crow will be ready to go, after that the Goalie depth is questionable at best. Not enough fire power in the top 6. Bottom 6 lacks depth, and impact bottom 6 type guys.

Realistically we have 3 players that I feel are core pieces. D-Cat, Kane, Schmaltz.

This is no knock on Keith, toews, Saad, and Seabrook but they have all seen better days, and I really don't see them getting back to their numbers or play they had in Cup runs.

We should rebuild, there are a lot of interesting young pieces on the roster, and in the pipe.

Click to expand...

Exactly...even though of all of the aforementioned players Saad has the best chance of a bounceback. And that's not a knock on what they've accomplished. They did more in this era than any other 'hawk did in any other era. But right now only Kane and Crawford have proven capable of being in the driver's seat spearheading the way. The rest haven't and in Keith & Seabrook's situations, they likely won't be the überstuds they were again because age is a motherfucker.

That means someone else has to do it...and quite frankly all of the D prospects we got are years away. We could try to bring someone else in but who do we send out? Most of the core has negative value and no other players have the cap to be able to acquire expensive pieces; and those that are good and cheap we want to keep.

Might be a couple of lean years but anyone who's a Chicago sports fan is used to that. We'll get back eventually.

I just see Keith consistently trying to make that easy pass thru the middle of the ice instead of fighting to the boards and clearing up the side. Just about every team defends that clearing pass at the boards, just about every team picks off telegraphed passes thru the middle by Keith and Seabrook when they play the hawks. We bring all these kids along and tell them to do what the norris trophy winner does or go back to rockford. They clear thru the middle, give assists to the opposite team and go to rockford anyway.

That is why I think there is a disconnect with Ulf running the D when it seems like the whole locker room knows he was brought here to replace Q. The vets are being loyal to Q while the new forwards are expecting the pass to go towards the boards. Just see it as another mess Bowman has created.

anotheridiot said:

I just see Keith consistently trying to make that easy pass thru the middle of the ice instead of fighting to the boards and clearing up the side. Just about every team defends that clearing pass at the boards, just about every team picks off telegraphed passes thru the middle by Keith and Seabrook when they play the hawks. We bring all these kids along and tell them to do what the norris trophy winner does or go back to rockford. They clear thru the middle, give assists to the opposite team and go to rockford anyway.

That is why I think there is a disconnect with Ulf running the D when it seems like the whole locker room knows he was brought here to replace Q. The vets are being loyal to Q while the new forwards are expecting the pass to go towards the boards. Just see it as another mess Bowman has created.

Click to expand...

Rumors have it it that the dude in Rockford is the next coach (not Ulf) , but I don't put any stock into "the next guy".

I think there was many facets to Keith's abortion of a year this year--and not all of them are his fault.

~He sucked on the PP and has for years, but Q in an exercise of futility that would put Wile E. Coyote to shame, kept putting him there.
~His outlet passes get read like an open book.
~He can't hit a 4x6 target from the point--they always hit the opponents shins.
~His double-clutch shot gives the opposition plenty of time to close the lanes.
~He tries to do WAY too much on the backend. I get it that he doesn't have a trusted D-1st partner but this isn't 2012: Crawford was more than capable of bailing out all 18 guys since 2013. By blowing his own coverage he opens up 2 lanes on net--rather than just 1. A top-10 Goalie like Crawford can cover for that 93 times out of 100. Career AHL'ers? We gotta change the red bulb behind the net ever game in that case.
~He's played way too much for his mileage.

Part of those issues should go away once Q is let go. However, given his age he's not going to be a Norris-guy again, but if slotted right (just like Seabrook), he should be useful rather than useless. He still needs an IQ check to try not to do too much and pull himself out of position. Keep him off the PP. That still is not going to be enough to have cup-winning D, but it will help.

Bigfoot said:

Melt love the optimism, but this team as constructed is not a Cup Contender. Fringe playoff team yes.

Click to expand...

I don't think they're a Cup contender right now, either. They need several players to take a big leap forward to make that happen.