John Jaeckel: The 2nd Half of the Summer

Thanks JJ and first!!!

thanks for the update JJ. Whereabouts in Michigan do you go? It's one of my favorite places to vacation and we typically head up to mackinac island late summer/early fall.

Welcome back JJ.

Any chance Hossa gets moved to Ottawa? I just think that is a great fit for that owner (even if they LTIR him). High cap hit with low actual salary.

Phew! Thought you were gonna get pushed off the board!

(Hope you had a great vacation/getaway!)

Glad you back, hope you had a relaxing time on your trip.

Thanks JJ, welcome back!

Speaking of Hossa, have we heard anything about how the NHL is going to view any LTIR of Hossa, and free up cap space? Confirmed we have to wait until the season starts, or will they acknowledge that it is what it is and allow the space before then?

thanks for the update JJ. Whereabouts in Michigan do you go? It's one of my favorite places to vacation and we typically head up to mackinac island late summer/early fall.
- blackhawks30

I'm from the Upper Peninsula, and love Mackinac Island. Hope you had a well deserved great time, JJ.

A question that you probably cannot answer.

Where do you think your organisation wants to take the team next season? You referred to getting early exits, but is that just a disappointed comment from management or a realistic expectation they don't want repeated & think their moves to get younger faster better will achieve a longer stay in the playoffs - assuming you make them?

Or are the moves made accepting a season (or 2), can be sacrificed to get better in the long run?

John Jaeckel: The 2nd Half of the Summer
- John Jaeckel

Great write up JJ as always.

I agree that Bowman can't make a move until the Hossa thing gets resolved. The question is, what's his next priority ? We're still lacking another top 6 winger, a center that wins draws, and a #4 dman ( if Murphy isn't the guy).
I don't believe,as you suggest, that this team is any better, in fact, may be worse than before the moves. Younger and faster is good, cap compliant is good, but is management going to happy with just that ?? As a STH, at least 2 more moves have to be made this summer.......... and I'm hoping that one of them is NOT the additon of Jerome Iginla. Seriously ?????? What't the point of that ?
IMO it's stil AA or Seabrook that has to go to make the changes needed...ie Galchenyuk or E Kane, etc. The current top 6 still has a glaring hole.
What is next ?

The Galchenyuk contract is very interesting that it is cheap and there is no NTC or NMC. Perfectly sets him up to be traded. Montreal still desperately a center, and AA would fits their needs. Gal would only be 400k more per year. Downside of course, is the Hawks are already pretty weak at center, but trading a bad faceoff guy doesn't necessarily hurt that situation.

John Jaeckel: The 2nd Half of the Summer
- John Jaeckel

JJ, hope the R&R was good, I posted something toward the end of the last blog comments that I overheard at the ball game, could be all crap... Or not? RE: Jerome Iginla, any chance you could dig on that one?

The Galchenyuk contract is very interesting that it is cheap and there is no NTC or NMC. Perfectly sets him up to be traded. Montreal still desperately a center, and AA would fits their needs. Gal would only be 400k more per year. Downside of course, is the Hawks are already pretty weak at center, but trading a bad faceoff guy doesn't necessarily hurt that situation.
- biskit67

the 1st 2 years of his contract he was still a RFA so you cannot have a NMC or a NTC. it would have only been his last year or 3rd year of the deal where he could have gotten it. My guess is the agent knew that they would probably trade him within the next 2 years and it would void out anyway.

The Galchenyuk contract is very interesting that it is cheap and there is no NTC or NMC. Perfectly sets him up to be traded. Montreal still desperately a center, and AA would fits their needs. Gal would only be 400k more per year. Downside of course, is the Hawks are already pretty weak at center, but trading a bad faceoff guy doesn't necessarily hurt that situation.
- biskit67

Totally agree............ I'll take the 24yr old winger/ bad faceoff guy in Galchenyuk over AA....... but I don't see it happening unless there's the "sweetener" again of course. Seems like SB is always in the position to have to be giving the extras to make the deals.

I would take a shot at Iggy and Campbell as cheap and Depth moves. I would also do GChuck for AA and play him at Center. It's a gamble but the upside may be worth it.

Seems the Montreal Coaching group has killed his confidence.

The problem for Bergevin- If GChuck finds his game Bergevin loses his job.

My take on the Kruger and TVR moves w Vegas:
It turns out we know the value of both:
Kruger traded for 5th round pick, TVR for a 2nd.
Other teams gave up 1st round picks to protect their roster.
Therefore, if the Hawks price for the Knights expansion was a 2nd and 5th, that's probably an average price to pay, especially for an upper echelon team w a good roster that would generally be exposing better players.

Now everyone also needs to realize that those trade prices were AFTER the expansion draft. The question is why didn't the Hawks just trade TVR to Carolina for a 2nd round pick. The answer (part of the answer) is that if Carolina added TVR to their roster before the expansion draft, it would have required them to expose some other player to Knights. So therefore TVR's trade value BEFORE the expansion draft had to be a 2nd round pick...OR LESS. Same for Kruger and the 5th round pick compensation.

So bottom line, it appears that Stan gave up a 2nd round pick level player in the expansion draft for the assurance of moving Kruger. The fact that Kruger netted only a 5th round pick tells us trading him wasn't going to be easy.

Well done, Stan. Good cap management.

The Galchenyuk contract is very interesting that it is cheap and there is no NTC or NMC. Perfectly sets him up to be traded. Montreal still desperately a center, and AA would fits their needs. Gal would only be 400k more per year. Downside of course, is the Hawks are already pretty weak at center, but trading a bad faceoff guy doesn't necessarily hurt that situation.
- biskit67

What would you characterize as bad? When he's not playing on a bum ankle like he was in the playoffs he's a career 46% on face offs. That's pretty much a coin flip on draws and would probably be better characterized as average than bad.

Cost controlled and paid what a 2C makes typically with typically 2C numbers no matter what team he's on.

I'd rather take a chance that a LW can step up, stand at the dots where Panarin went and score 20 on that line.

Whatever happened to moving AA?

You would think that was a given and would of happened by now as that is all we talked about or what was reported for the longest time and now nothing?

Has the FO changed their mind on AA?

the 1st 2 years of his contract he was still a RFA so you cannot have a NMC or a NTC. it would have only been his last year or 3rd year of the deal where he could have gotten it. My guess is the agent knew that they would probably trade him within the next 2 years and it would void out anyway.
- kmw4631

Pretty sure Galchenyuk is a RFA for all the years of his current contract, so he was ineligible for a NTC/NMC for the whole thing. It did not eat into any of his UFA years.

Whatever happened to moving AA?

You would think that was a given and would of happened by now as that is all we talked about or what was reported for the longest time and now nothing?

Has the FO changed their mind on AA?
- Hawkster

Why would you think that was a given? Reports were of them exploring the option, not that it was definitely going to happen. The Hawks have only two proven centers at the moment.

Whatever happened to moving AA?

You would think that was a given and would of happened by now as that is all we talked about or what was reported for the longest time and now nothing?

Has the FO changed their mind on AA?

Much as Id be on board moving Anisimov, it's not like the Hawks have an abundance of centers. I can't see him being a trade option.

The Galchenyuk contract is very interesting that it is cheap and there is no NTC or NMC. Perfectly sets him up to be traded. Montreal still desperately a center, and AA would fits their needs. Gal would only be 400k more per year. Downside of course, is the Hawks are already pretty weak at center, but trading a bad faceoff guy doesn't necessarily hurt that situation.
- biskit67

I disagree here. Nobody is going to be very effective at scoring goals when the puck can't be secured off the draw.

I may be in the minority here but I'd rather they move AA for a young good face-off guy with upside. For example, Oscar Lindberg is 50%+ at the dot, has some skill, will play in the corners, and has pretty good speed. Send AA to LVG for him and some D depth. Boom.

Curious...does a NMC/NTC get voided upon a trade? Kruger no longer has NTC?
Have the hawks cleared up their NTC/NMC mess a bit by trading Hammer for Murphy? (Panarin didn't have NMC or NTC, so no gain there?

Welcome back John.

Any word on what the hold up is on the League and a Hossa ruling. Any idea when an answer is forthcoming???