Well, Hawks' GM Stan Bowman thinned the already thinned ranks a bit further today, by dealing C Marty Reasoner (recently acquired from Atlanta in the Dustin Byfuglien deal) to Florida for C/LW Jeff Taffe.

There is a cost and an opportunity to this deal.

Reasoner was a guy the Hawks could plug in on the 4th line and expect a solid 4th line performance: pesky, winning faceoffs, helping kill penalties.

Sort of John Madden Lite.

Taffe is a career underachiever, a former first round pick who's played well in the AHL and unspectacularly in 173 NHL games. Taffe is an NHL player, but he's not the ideal 4th line, grinder type of player. He has good size, decent hands and can play either center (where he's not terrible on faceoffs) or left wing.

The big positive here is this deal frees up another $600,000 that can be used to sign Antti Niemi. It is conceivable that this figure fills whatever gap presently exists between the Niemi camp and the Hawks, and might get a deal done before Niemi's arbitration hearing scheduled for July 29, one week from today.

With a fair amount of NHL experience, including 45 games for the Penguins a few years ago, Taffe will definitely be in the mix for a third or fourth line job with newly acquired Victor Stalberg, Jack Skille, Jake Dowell, Bryan Bickell and Igor Makarov.

Personally, I see no way this deal was done for any reason other than fitting Niemi under the cap. And that said, I believe the Hawks will retain the high-potential Finnish netminder.

With that in mind, the Hawks will have emerged from the summer's bloodbath with a reasonable approximation of their top 7 forwards:

Troy Brouwer-Jonathan Toews-Patrick Kane
Tomas Kopecky-Patrick Sharp-Marian Hossa
Dave Bolland

Yes, many remember Dustin Byfuglien's star turn on the top line in the 2010 Western Semis through the Cup Finals. However, Brouwer held the first line LW role for most of last season and might have been there throughout the playoffs were it not for a serious family health issue.

By the same token, it is a bit of a stretch to plug Kopecky in at 2nd line LW; while he thrived there in the playoffs, he was a fourth line player (albeit on a good fourth line) most of last season.

That said, Kopecky's game and confidence really took off during and after the Olympics last year, when he starred for fourth place surprise Slovakia. And most who followed the Hawks would concur that he seemed to establish himself as a much more effective hockey player from that point on— including, especially, the playoffs.

And the Hawks have retained their top 4 defense:

Keith-Seabrook
Campbell-Hjalmarsson

OK, let's not be ridiculous; this is no longer a four-line team. But it is a very good two line team, with a great Top 4 defense (including the current Norris Trophy winner) that eats up a lot of minutes—which is fairly better than average in the diluted NHL.

And, likely, it has a better than average goaltender who can win big games on his own.

So it can be argued there is an enormous opportunity for the Stalbergs, Skilles, Makarovs, and perhaps talented youngsters like Kyle Beach (though doubtful), Shawn Lalonde (more likely), and Ivan Vishnevskiy (even more likely) to make this club and make a contribution.

With the exception of Beach, all these players can really skate and have games (with perhaps the exception of Skille) that are well-suited to the Blackhawks' style of play.

And in a larger sense, which of these players seizes a job and delivers on their opportunity, could go a long way to determining if or how well the Blackhawks defend the Stanley Cup.

Thanks for reading.


JJ

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