Your post brings up a good topic: who would you be okay with trading from the core, if anyone? It's a shitty question in the sense that you wish all these guys can retire as Hawks, but generally speaking, that's rarely ever the case. The quick answer of course will be Seabs (if it's even possible to move that contract) and 2nd will probably be Keith to jettison, but would you move Toews and Kane in the immediate future?
Crawford -- I like the guy and always have -- but his days as a Hawk should be done in my view. Hell, his playing career in my view should be done, considering his injury history and the fact he's already won 2 stanley cups and the guy's in his mid-thirties, with a family. Why risk it and play more? I can see him retiring after this year.
I don't see any of the core being signed once their current contracts are up; including Crawford, who is in his last year. So even though it would suck, I would be open to actually trading all of them at some point. Crow walks, unless you trade him at the deadline to a contender (assuming he wants one more kick at a Cup and the Hawks are out of the hunt by then).
If you made me choose it would be Crow just because of age, concussions, and the chance to sign Lehner for a few year stretch and keep this thing going.
I like having them both and think it will eventually start to pay off with point streaks later this season. But the temptation to clear 5,000,000 and the value to grab a top 6 wing is there and desired...a deadline deal wouldn't surprise me at all given the Hawks goalie depth both in Rockford and potentially overseas to come over next year, where you might want to look at the guys in rockford before Nalimov arrives?
Anyway...
I will still argue that Toews, Seabs, and Keith still do invaluable things for this club that nobody else has the skill set or physical traits to replace.
The game Seabs sat we lost to a shitty team in a shitty rut, didn't move ANYBODY out of the crease..etc.
He is still an important physical element on this team. Just the threat of getting him mad and his presences as a 6'5" 260 lb man offers a fair degree of protection many guys on this team need around.
That time he got mad and nearly killed Backes really altered his career and effectiveness. He never seemed the same once he calmed down and played under control(the shitty thing is the Blues deserved those hits that were cumulative retaliation...if Seabs didn't do it that feud might have ended with one of our own in the hospital getting condolences instead, that was a situation where Seabs was forced into it being the biggesst and baddest man on a club under repeated assaults, but a talk with the commissioner, reigns by the Hawks, Backes injuries...the fines...SOMETHING changed his aggressiveness after that and finding himself in multiple offender protocol)
