The Chicago Blackhawks were once a team that could roll 3-4 lines of proven veteran talent. But they are no longer that team.
Time, 3 Stanley Cups, and a stagnant salary cap have turned the Hawks into a top heavy team, relying on more rookies than it would like to, struggling to fire on all six cylinders on its two "scoring" lines.
These are facts. Yet the Hawks, by virtue of their record, remain one of the league's better teams. After all, teams like San Jose, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, L.A. and the Rangers have to deal with the same fallout from their relative levels of success, the salary cap, etc.
Last night, Chicago took the ice versus one of the league's worst teams, the Colorado Avalanche. All the statistics and home ice advantage pointed to a relatively easy Hawk win in regulation. And yet they lost in overtime, 2-1.
An easy thing to point to is the absence of 2 of the team's best forwards, Marian Hossa and Artem Anisimov.
The Hawks put 39 shots on Avalanche netminder Calvin Pickard, but the Colorado backup saw most of them easily and stopped all but one. Minus Anisimov, the Hawks' largest and arguably most consistent net front presence, the Hawks don't have a lot of guys who are very effective creating screens or going hard to the front of the net.
Minus Anisimov and Hossa, and with a clearly limited Jonathan Toews (injury), the Hawks simply didn't have the guns to get by a team like Colorado.
Could be just bounces of the puck.
Could be depth, or lack thereof, is a potential Achilles' Heel for this team. Because injuries happen.
And the Hawks, as they struggle to cobble together scoring on more than one line under the healthiest of circumstances, literally can't afford any of the kinds of injuries they're dealing with now.
And before you say, "yeah, but every team has depth issues under the cap," not so fast. The goal isn't to be as good as every other team—it's to be better. Right? I didn't seen any Tampa Bay Lightning at the Parade in Chicago in the summer of 2015. Only the best team wins the Cup.
Nor is this to be critical of Stan Bowman or the Hawk front office, Yes, we can debate whether signing Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews at a million less per player per year was doable and wise. But it didn't happen. We can debate whether $3 million is an overpay for a pure shutdown center—even though that's pretty much market value.
Meanwhile, you see a team like Columbus, that has "benefited" from years of high draft position, or, in the case of Brandon Saad, being able to literally take advantage of the cap woes of "successful" teams like Chicago.
Columbus is not a flash in the pan or a team "on the rise." They are "risen." I'm not in any way predicting they win the Cup or even come out of the East, but the Jackets are a lot like the Blackhawks of 2010. Good, young, deep, and confident. And their young players, because of these higher draft positions and not making repeated deadline deals like the Hawks have (which were made for the right reasons regardless), are, frankly, a lot better than the ones Chicago is trying to make do with.
That's what a hard cap does in pro sports—and the NHL has the hardest of any of the four "major" sports.
Nor is this a premature post-mortem on the Hawks.
But as many readers know, I have been hesitant, make that really unwilling, to anoint this team anything but a work in progress that perhaps built an early record (based on unreal—and probably unsustainable—goaltending mostly) that was better than the sum of the roster's parts.
Still if the Hawks get—and stay—healthy . . . if Bowman can figure out some workaround as he has in a couple of past seasons to perhaps add a reliable veteran forward before the trade deadline. . . even if it costs one of the rookie" jewels," this is a team that can contend. Because the Western Conference, at least, is not so great this year.
And in terms of the arc of this franchise, maybe this is the last year of the Cup window as we know it. Because this summer, the team will be faced with a very expensive and important choice, when the contract of Artemi Panarin, its lone legitimate scoring left wing comes up.
The Hawks will have to choose between parting ways with Panarin, perhaps just as they did with Saad, and trying to salvage some value (while perhaps literally leaving Andrew Desjardins as its best natural left wing), or chump up perhaps $7 million in added cap commitment, necessitating a trade of some other vital core player's (or perhaps "players" plural) contract(s).
It's math.
It's almost impossible under a stagnant or slowly rising cap cap to improve, when you are continually paying more and more just to retain talent. It forces you to pin a lot of hope on young players who might not be fully marinated, who other less successful, higher picking teams passed on, sometimes for several rounds, to round out your roster.
Sound familiar?
Still the Hawks have a puncher's chance (if healthy) and a front office that gets it—showing the willingness year after year to part ways with the likes of Klas Dahlbeck or Marko Dano and/or later draft picks to add a missing piece or two.
And on the good news front, Hossa and Anisimov will both likely return soon.
Like I said, it's a work in progress.
Happy Holidays everybody. Be safe, enjoy the time with your families and friends. I'll have a Jets preview in the next couple of days.
JJ
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