How much are the penalties if the Hawks trade him, and he retires after any of the next three seasons? Not that I think they will trade him, and I definitely don't want him traded, just curious.
- tvetter

I think the recapture penalties occur, against the Blackhawks salary cap only, if he retires before the end of his contract, no matter where he plays.

Hopefully the lesson learned from going 0-4 in the first round is that they need more talent; size, speed, skill, and toughness. And, they need to be aggressive in acquiring it. The FO can't just hope 19, 2, 7, 15, and 16 regain their form and the young guys improve. The team needs more. I hope that is painfully obvious to all of the decision makers.
- matt_ahrens

Salary cap + all the NMC means that they will in fact have to hope the core lives up to their potential and young guys step into roles.

Unless there is a tree I don't know about that bears talented, big, fast, skilled, tough hockey players as fruit.

Draft update, I think I have this right:

31st Cup winner

30th Cup loser

29th Conference loser highest pts

28th Conference loser lower points

27th Division winner highest points Caps (if Caps go to conference finals they move back to 29th, 30th or 31st and the Blackhawks slide back to 27th)

26th Division winner next highest points Blackhawks

25th Division winner next highest points Ducks (if Ducks go to conference finals they move back to 28th, 29th, 30th or 31st no effect on Blackhawks draft position)

24th Division winner next highest points Canadians

Another thing to look at is guys like Kempny and Pan are not going to be picking Chicago moving forward. Kempny is looking at a bridge deal and he see's Zaitsev getting a 4 Mil by 7 year LT deal. Pan is rookie of the year and top 10 in scoring 2 years and gets a Short term deal and now is possibility to get dealt. Panik by all accounts had a great year and I'm sure we are offering a bridge deal. With us not being able to trade Craw and save 2 mil with darling. Kruger being very hard to deal. Trading kruger on his own does not keep paniK and so you need to move 2 guys. Kruger and or 1 of AA, Pan, Keith, hammer, will also have to go.

Draft update, I think I have this right:

31st Cup winner

30th Cup loser

29th Conference loser highest pts

28th Conference loser lower points

27th Division winner highest points Caps (if Caps go to conference finals they move back to 29th, 30th or 31st and the Blackhawks slide back to 27th)

26th Division winner next highest points Blackhawks

25th Division winner next highest points Ducks (if Ducks go to conference finals they move back to 28th, 29th, 30th or 31st no effect on Blackhawks draft position)

24th Division winner next highest points Canadians
- walleyeb1

Let's hope the Pens best the Caps. I normally don't have a preference between the two teams but we might as well have a draft position that is one spot higher.

Another thing to look at is guys like Kempny and Pan are not going to be picking Chicago moving forward. Kempny is looking at a bridge deal and he see's Zaitsev getting a 4 Mil by 7 year LT deal. Pan is rookie of the year and top 10 in scoring 2 years and gets a Short term deal and now is possibility to get dealt. Panik by all accounts had a great year and I'm sure we are offering a bridge deal. With us not being able to trade Craw and save 2 mil with darling. Kruger being very hard to deal. Trading kruger on his own does not keep paniK and so you need to move 2 guys. Kruger and or 1 of AA, Pan, Keith, hammer, will also have to go.
- kmw4631

Just had a thought both Panik and Kempny may be wise to take a one year deal. They'd both be 27 and UFA's at the end of next season.

Just had a thought both Panik and Kempny may be wise to take a one year deal. They'd both be 27 and UFA's at the end of next season.
- walleyeb1

you are probably right and then the hawks lose them for nothing.

How much are the penalties if the Hawks trade him, and he retires after any of the next three seasons? Not that I think they will trade him, and I definitely don't want him traded, just curious.
- tvetter

I don't know exactly. I hate cap stuff. Gimme the broad strokes.

Ok I want to play a quick round here:

Coaching: C (or on a scale of 1-5 then a 3). You can't argue with the results. You also can't discount that a team with 4 hall of famers, ought to do well in the regular season. Crawford and Darling bailed the hawks out quite a bit and running back to a security blanket defender rather than developing one has bit them in the butt more than once.

Not changing the scheme on the penalty kill was downright silly. And the lack of movement on the power play is kind of a problem.

Without Patrick Kane, it is possible this team misses the playoffs. You could probably say the same about the tremendous goaltending they got this year and last.

GM: D. Spending money that wasn't available yet has been a problem. Chasing certain veterans on the blue line or extending others a year too long has been a problem. Not developing any defenders to back fill leaving veterans (other than TVR who in my opinion is not a good hockey player) is not good. Even if you count TVR, that is 1 player, not even a draft pick who is an NHL regular on the blue line for these guys. Not a good success rate. (Leddy was a trade and doesn't count)


Anyhoo: I think they go for broke and:
- Flip Panarin (+) for Duchene, Kooga as part of that deal or for veteran and cap space
- Move Hammer (if that is a movable contract) for a young cost controlled defender from Carolina (with that relationship and they have a log jam), Toronto (Babcock would love to have him) or the Jets
- Use extra cap space and whatever else to get Joe Thornton to end his career here and maybe they can get bigger and faster while having a stupid amount of options for Q to shuffle the deck with.

Hope Crow has a career year (again) and if Toews doesn't bounce back you have Jumbo Joe feeding Patrick Kane and probably get an easy 45 goals there and they at least win the conference again.

I think the recapture penalties occur, against the Blackhawks salary cap only, if he retires before the end of his contract, no matter where he plays.
- 35Tony0

I know the Hawks would be the team to be hit with the penalty, but my question was about this scenario: So far the Hawks have benefited by $17.1M in actual salary vs salary cap hit, which means the current penalty is $4.275M per season for the remainder of his contract if he stays a Hawk. If he is traded this year, and retires with one season to go, are the Hawks on the hook for $4.275M, or $17.1M? I thought I read somewhere that the penalty is total benefit for the team divided by years remaining on contract, so in the above scenario, the Hawks would be hit with a $17.1M it against their cap because they would not be taking a higher salary cap hit for the next three years. This is also why I think there is absolutely no chance of trading Hossa, and why I think Nashville was stupid to trade Weber.

Ok I want to play a quick round here:

Coaching: C (or on a scale of 1-5 then a 3). You can't argue with the results. You also can't discount that a team with 4 hall of famers, ought to do well in the regular season. Crawford and Darling bailed the hawks out quite a bit and running back to a security blanket defender rather than developing one has bit them in the butt more than once.

Not changing the scheme on the penalty kill was downright silly. And the lack of movement on the power play is kind of a problem.

Without Patrick Kane, it is possible this team misses the playoffs. You could probably say the same about the tremendous goaltending they got this year and last.

GM: D. Spending money that wasn't available yet has been a problem. Chasing certain veterans on the blue line or extending others a year too long has been a problem. Not developing any defenders to back fill leaving veterans (other than TVR who in my opinion is not a good hockey player) is not good. Even if you count TVR, that is 1 player, not even a draft pick who is an NHL regular on the blue line for these guys. Not a good success rate. (Leddy was a trade and doesn't count)


Anyhoo: I think they go for broke and:
- Flip Panarin (+) for Duchene, Kooga as part of that deal or for veteran and cap space
- Move Hammer (if that is a movable contract) for a young cost controlled defender from Carolina (with that relationship and they have a log jam), Toronto (Babcock would love to have him) or the Jets
- Use extra cap space and whatever else to get Joe Thornton to end his career here and maybe they can get bigger and faster while having a stupid amount of options for Q to shuffle the deck with.

Hope Crow has a career year (again) and if Toews doesn't bounce back you have Jumbo Joe feeding Patrick Kane and probably get an easy 45 goals there and they at least win the conference again.
- fattybeef

This team has not drafted a good defenseman in a long time.

Only guy I can think of is Johns, 7 years ago, who is still a somewhat unknown commodity. But a lot of fans have salivated over the Yearly Smurf/Future Superstar forward Stanley always seems to come up with.

Jumbo is an interesting possibility, and I like your math, but I hate the idea of giving up Hjalmarsson.

Would be great if they could move the two Russians (together or separately) for significant return and freeing up some cap space for a move on Jumbo Joe.

All that said, I know in the past Thornton's personality has rubbed some people in Chicago the wrong way.

Just had a thought both Panik and Kempny may be wise to take a one year deal. They'd both be 27 and UFA's at the end of next season.
- walleyeb1

Stanbo does not have to offer a 1 year deal. On the flip side. lets say the Black and Blues offer a one year deal on a wink wink nod nod, I am sure the "C"ollusion word sneaks into the conversation.

I bet the Board of Lack of Goverenance already testy about their college drafts getting plucked away would not stand for a 1 year tender with a pre-agreement for a LT Deal. Stated another way in example, McJesus is a RFA after next season. The Ducks will have 25M in cap space. They could offer McDavid an insane 1 year deal with a gentleman's understanding of a long term contract this is more inline with his value. So all the top guys now have zero reason to hang around on the team that drafted them.

How much are the penalties if the Hawks trade him, and he retires after any of the next three seasons? Not that I think they will trade him, and I definitely don't want him traded, just curious.
- tvetter

Hossa's cap hit for his contract is $5,275,000. His salary for those last 4 years beginning 2017/2018 is $1m. $4,275,000 penalty for each year he doesnt play.

Here's the logic of the penalty, using extreme numbers for an example:
Say a player is only going to play one more year, but wants $10m to play.
The team can't afford a $10m cap hit. So they sign him for two year contract that pays him $10m for year 1, and $1m for year 2. No way he's playing for $1m in year 2. NHL cap hits are calculated on average salary across a contract. So his average is $5.5m/year for two years.

He plays in year 1 for $10m, and the team's cap hit is $5.5m. As you can see, the team has gained a $4.5m cap hit advantage by this contract structure. But the opposite occurs ion year 2...he gets $1m salary, but the team gets $5.5m cap hit.
In the old days, the player retired before year two, and the team suffered no penalty for having gained that advantage in year 1.

The penalty is effectively telling these teams that if you gain the advantage, you have to accept the downside in the out years of the contract. In Hossa's case, this "downside" is $4.275m per year for each of the next 4 years.

Once you understand this, you can see that even if the Hawks trade Hossa, the penalty should come back to the Hawks...the Hawks gained the advantage in the early years, they can't sluff that off on someone else for the out years.

Now one other thing. This was a RETROACTIVE assessment of a penalty negotiated into the last Collective Bargaining Agreement. Hossa (like many other players) negotiated this contract when doing this structure was legal. It was approved by the League. Then when the last CBA was negotiated, the league put in a penalty after the fact on several players contracts, including Hossa's and Keith's on the Hawks (there's only a handful of existing contracts that fall meaningfully into this category). Many NHL fans feel this retroactive penalty is unfair.

Finally, there is at least one weird set of circumstances that cause some hawk fans to hold out hope we can avoid a Hossa penalty. Pronger was on Philly, and basically retired due to injuries (concussions). He worked in the NHL office while still under contract with Philly. Then he was traded to Coyotes, and kept on their roster on LTIR for the remainder of his contract. No cap penalty to Philly. I am in the camp that feels this Pronger fact pattern will allow the Hawks to find a reason (chronic back issues?) to put Hossa on LTIR when he decides to hang them up, and avoid the cap penalty. But to me, that's why he can never be traded. He needs to be on the Hawks so they can work with him to handle this LTIR situation. Another team will tell him to just retire, as the penalty doesnt hit them.

Ok I want to play a quick round here:

Coaching: C (or on a scale of 1-5 then a 3). You can't argue with the results. You also can't discount that a team with 4 hall of famers, ought to do well in the regular season. Crawford and Darling bailed the hawks out quite a bit and running back to a security blanket defender rather than developing one has bit them in the butt more than once.

Not changing the scheme on the penalty kill was downright silly. And the lack of movement on the power play is kind of a problem.

Without Patrick Kane, it is possible this team misses the playoffs. You could probably say the same about the tremendous goaltending they got this year and last.

GM: D. Spending money that wasn't available yet has been a problem. Chasing certain veterans on the blue line or extending others a year too long has been a problem. Not developing any defenders to back fill leaving veterans (other than TVR who in my opinion is not a good hockey player) is not good. Even if you count TVR, that is 1 player, not even a draft pick who is an NHL regular on the blue line for these guys. Not a good success rate. (Leddy was a trade and doesn't count)


Anyhoo: I think they go for broke and:
- Flip Panarin (+) for Duchene, Kooga as part of that deal or for veteran and cap space
- Move Hammer (if that is a movable contract) for a young cost controlled defender from Carolina (with that relationship and they have a log jam), Toronto (Babcock would love to have him) or the Jets
- Use extra cap space and whatever else to get Joe Thornton to end his career here and maybe they can get bigger and faster while having a stupid amount of options for Q to shuffle the deck with.

Hope Crow has a career year (again) and if Toews doesn't bounce back you have Jumbo Joe feeding Patrick Kane and probably get an easy 45 goals there and they at least win the conference again.
- fattybeef

Interesting......

--Jumbo Joe wants a 3 year deal, and you could argue his set up in San Jose is just as competitive as coming here. Plus you throw in the rift between him and 19 and I'd be curious if they could make that work. Remember it was Jumbo's head shot to 19 a few years back which led to Toews concussion for an extended miss of time, and if you don't think it was Joe....flash forward to the following year when Toews went out of his way to engage Jumbo into a fight. That's more then just hard competition, that's a cheap shot which usually is hard for guys to get over.

--So even if you could get joe away from San Jose, and since he's coming off of a 6.67 aav and wants 3 years, can't see him dipping below 5 million....I think you would need to keep 72 and Jumbo/kane both want the puck and create way...putting them both together will throw the offer one off.

--I'd move Aminisov+Kruger to get a young cheap D man.

You could then throw Kane up with Toews, and Panarin with Jumbo and hossa with Kero or Schmaltz and go at it that way.

I agree with John that moving your best defensive defensemen probably weakens this team but I also get that his contract is probably more enticing to a team then Seabrooks or even Keiths (if his knee doesn't bounce back)

Hossa's cap hit for his contract is $5,275,000. His salary for those last 4 years beginning 2017/2018 is $1m. $4,275,000 penalty for each year he doesnt play.

Here's the logic of the penalty, using extreme numbers for an example:
Say a player is only going to play one more year, but wants $10m to play.
The team can't afford a $10m cap hit. So they sign him for two year contract that pays him $10m for year 1, and $1m for year 2. No way he's playing for $1m in year 2. NHL cap hits are calculated on average salary across a contract. So his average is $5.5m/year for two years.

He plays in year 1 for $10m, and the team's cap hit is $5.5m. As you can see, the team has gained a $4.5m cap hit advantage by this contract structure. But the opposite occurs ion year 2...he gets $1m salary, but the team gets $5.5m cap hit.
In the old days, the player retired before year two, and the team suffered no penalty for having gained that advantage in year 1.

The penalty is effectively telling these teams that if you gain the advantage, you have to accept the downside in the out years of the contract. In Hossa's case, this "downside" is $4.275m per year for each of the next 4 years.

Once you understand this, you can see that even if the Hawks trade Hossa, the penalty should come back to the Hawks...the Hawks gained the advantage in the early years, they can't sluff that off on someone else for the out years.

Now one other thing. This was a RETROACTIVE assessment of a penalty negotiated into the last Collective Bargaining Agreement. Hossa (like many other players) negotiated this contract when doing this structure was legal. It was approved by the League. Then when the last CBA was negotiated, the league put in a penalty after the fact on several players contracts, including Hossa's and Keith's on the Hawks (there's only a handful of existing contracts that fall meaningfully into this category). Many NHL fans feel this retroactive penalty is unfair.

Finally, there is at least one weird set of circumstances that cause some hawk fans to hold out hope we can avoid a Hossa penalty. Pronger was on Philly, and basically retired due to injuries (concussions). He worked in the NHL office while still under contract with Philly. Then he was traded to Coyotes, and kept on their roster on LTIR for the remainder of his contract. No cap penalty to Philly. I am in the camp that feels this Pronger fact pattern will allow the Hawks to find a reason (chronic back issues?) to put Hossa on LTIR when he decides to hang them up, and avoid the cap penalty. But to me, that's why he can never be traded. He needs to be on the Hawks so they can work with him to handle this LTIR situation. Another team will tell him to just retire, as the penalty doesnt hit them.
- Cmonalready

Good post.

I don't see Hossa ever skating in another team's uniform for these and some other reasons. And I don't think this team's management, right up to McD and Wirtz wants that. Hossa is and will be part of this team's legacy going forward. They understand what that means—including in terms of the brand value.

A Pronger-like scenario is possible, where he could be dealt to a floor team and LTIR'ed. You'd almost hate to see that but no one has ever really considered Pronger or Datsyuk a Coyote either.

Interesting......

--Jumbo Joe wants a 3 year deal, and you could argue his set up in San Jose is just as competitive as coming here. Plus you throw in the rift between him and 19 and I'd be curious if they could make that work. Remember it was Jumbo's head shot to 19 a few years back which led to Toews concussion for an extended miss of time, and if you don't think it was Joe....flash forward to the following year when Toews went out of his way to engage Jumbo into a fight. That's more then just hard competition, that's a cheap shot which usually is hard for guys to get over.

--So even if you could get joe away from San Jose, and since he's coming off of a 6.67 aav and wants 3 years, can't see him dipping below 5 million....I think you would need to keep 72 and Jumbo/kane both want the puck and create way...putting them both together will throw the offer one off.

--I'd move Aminisov+Kruger to get a young cheap D man.

You could then throw Kane up with Toews, and Panarin with Jumbo and hossa with Kero or Schmaltz and go at it that way.

I agree with John that moving your best defensive defensemen probably weakens this team but I also get that his contract is probably more enticing to a team then Seabrooks or even Keiths (if his knee doesn't bounce back)
- SteveRain

They could move Keith in five seconds, I suspect even if there are still doubts about his knee. Seabrook is a much tougher deal to move.

Move Panarin, Anisimov, Kruger, get Duchene as part of the return, use the added cap savings to add another piece or two, probably another decent forward who can take/win draws at minimum, and you might have something.

Stanbo does not have to offer a 1 year deal. On the flip side. lets say the Black and Blues offer a one year deal on a wink wink nod nod, I am sure the "C"ollusion word sneaks into the conversation.

I bet the Board of Lack of Goverenance already testy about their college drafts getting plucked away would not stand for a 1 year tender with a pre-agreement for a LT Deal. Stated another way in example, McJesus is a RFA after next season. The Ducks will have 25M in cap space. They could offer McDavid an insane 1 year deal with a gentleman's understanding of a long term contract this is more inline with his value. So all the top guys now have zero reason to hang around on the team that drafted them.
- riozzo

I'm thinking if I'm their agent and Stan wants them to sign for a discount, I'm say one year, two max. If you want to lock my guy up for two years it's going to cost you more per year.

They could move Keith in five seconds, I suspect even if there are still doubts about his knee. Seabrook is a much tougher deal to move.

Move Panarin, Anisimov, Kruger, get Duchene as part of the return, use the added cap savings to add another piece or two, probably another decent forward who can take/win draws at minimum, and you might have something.
- John Jaeckel

call it a "hunch" but I am betting they move Kruger and Aminisov and that is all.....I'm not saying I disagree with moving other parts previously mentioned but they pimp Panarin around hard and realize he's the next clone to "sharp" as they have (sniper/goal scorer).

https://twitter.com/cmoresport/status/861652410359463937
- Stan_Bowman

nasty.


wish one of our sweedes would make a hit like that once in a while.

I'm thinking if I'm their agent and Stan wants them to sign for a discount, I'm say one year, two max. If you want to lock my guy up for two years it's going to cost you more per year.
- walleyeb1

And I of testicular fortitude tell that agent - nope conversation starts at 3 years @XX $. At some point I would prefer they loose one or two players then pass out more crap contracts. Remember Hjammerson was offer sheeted on what is arguably is seen as a very good contract.

This team has not drafted a good defenseman in a long time.

Only guy I can think of is Johns, 7 years ago, who is still a somewhat unknown commodity. But a lot of fans have salivated over the Yearly Smurf/Future Superstar forward Stanley always seems to come up with.

Jumbo is an interesting possibility, and I like your math, but I hate the idea of giving up Hjalmarsson.

Would be great if they could move the two Russians (together or separately) for significant return and freeing up some cap space for a move on Jumbo Joe.

All that said, I know in the past Thornton's personality has rubbed some people in Chicago the wrong way.
- John Jaeckel

They need to move salary and get younger and faster on the blue line one way or another. I would have moved Seabrook two years ago but this organization is entirely too sentimental about their assets. If Seabrook cant be moved for any value or at all and Hammer can, then they'll have to do what they have to do.

If they can retain AA as well as pick up Thornton then they have good options in the top 6 or even spreading the wealth around which seems to be Q's thing.

I'm sure Thornton has rubbed people the wrong way (PHRASING) but if the NHL isn't going to enforce the rules and the playoffs are going to turn into a blood bath again this at least gives them a very heavy player and another hall of fame veteran who is well equipped to deal with that crap even if he has lost a step. I think some of the guys could suck that up for one or two years to win.

I also think they need a Toews insurance policy any way you cut it so if not Duchene then I think they have to make a good effort to grab Jumbo just in case.

And I of testicular fortitude tell that agent - nope conversation starts at 3 years @XX $. At some point I would prefer they loose one or two players then pass out more crap contracts. Remember Hjammerson was offer sheeted on what is arguably is seen as a very good contract.
- riozzo

Ok so what does Stan offer Panik per year for a three year contract?

They need to move salary and get younger and faster on the blue line one way or another. I would have moved Seabrook two years ago but this organization is entirely too sentimental about their assets. If Seabrook cant be moved for any value or at all and Hammer can, then they'll have to do what they have to do.

If they can retain AA as well as pick up Thornton then they have good options in the top 6 or even spreading the wealth around which seems to be Q's thing.

I'm sure Thornton has rubbed people the wrong way (PHRASING) but if the NHL isn't going to enforce the rules and the playoffs are going to turn into a blood bath again this at least gives them a very heavy player and another hall of fame veteran who is well equipped to deal with that crap even if he has lost a step. I think some of the guys could suck that up for one or two years to win.

I also think they need a Toews insurance policy any way you cut it so if not Duchene then I think they have to make a good effort to grab Jumbo just in case.
- fattybeef

It's all good thinking, and interesting

Ok so what does Stan offer Panik per year for a three year contract?
- walleyeb1

7 years, $2 million per year.

Good post.

I don't see Hossa ever skating in another team's uniform for these and some other reasons. And I don't think this team's management, right up to McD and Wirtz wants that. Hossa is and will be part of this team's legacy going forward. They understand what that means—including in terms of the brand value.

A Pronger-like scenario is possible, where he could be dealt to a floor team and LTIR'ed. You'd almost hate to see that but no one has ever really considered Pronger or Datsyuk a Coyote either.
- John Jaeckel

To be clear, my "Pronger" option for Hossa is simply LTIR on the Hawks. No trade.

A team can only "use" the advantage of LTIR (replacing the player's cap hit) if they are at the cap limit. If you're not at the cap, then you need to trade to a floor team and have them accept the LTIR. The Hawks will be at the cap for the next 4 years. Therefore no need for a trade.