Realistically, who really holds out hope of a meaningful comeback in this series by the Blackhawks?
I resisted the temptation on Sunday to write a post-mortem when they went down 2-0 to Nashville (after playing both games on home ice). A Game 3 win might begin to flip the script.
Didn’t happen.
So as the bitter disappointment of the regular season tease, followed by playoff flop, of this team lingers in the mouth of the fanbase for the second year in a row, I will offer some perspective.
First, a huge tip of the cap to the Predators.
They’re going to win the series because they are the better team. And they play harder. Which is why they’re the better team. And why barring a Lourdes-esque Miracle, they will win this series, maybe as soon as Game 4.
Hawk fans, myself included, are swallowing a much-needed dose of humility and reality surrounding our team. And, perhaps it is more necessary that team management does the same.
There is lots of blame to go around for a team expected to contend for Cups the last two years getting beaten out of the playoffs before May. Some will point at team leadership. Some at the coaching staff. Some at the front office. The fact is, they’re all to blame.
Equally? Hard to say.
But it definitely starts with a front office that has been way too fast and loose with big money, long-term contracts and no-movement clauses.
Many have questioned the twin deals given to Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane a couple of years ago, at $10.5 million per year a piece.
For comparison sake, Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby make a combined $2.8 million less a season over nearly the same term. And for the second straight season, Geno and Sid are looking on to their next victim in the second round, while Kane and Toews look around and wonder what just happened.
Blame Kane and blame Toews all you want, but only an idiot leaves big money on the table, especially when some other idiot is offering it.
And that “other idiot… is the collective leadership of the Chicago Blackhawks, Stan Bowman, John McDonough and anyone else who rubber-stamped those cap-crippling deals.
Arrogant, short-sighted and now part of an albatross of mismanaged cap space around the neck of this organization.
Sure, Kane and Toews together and individually are really nice players. But many (myself included) asked then: did they need to be paid that much? When they had over a year left on their deals?
They didn’t. And their lack of playoff production (Kane’s goal last night notwithstanding) over the last two years speaks volumes.
Why did Artem Anisimov need to be extended for big money and a no-movement clause in the summer of 2015, less than a week after the team acquired him from Columbus for Brandon Saad—when he still had a year left on his existing deal? To tell the rest of the league “we’re better off with him and we’ll prove it?…
Dumb.
You want to pick nits and look at Marcus Kruger’s $3 million a year? Sure, go ahead. But he’s the one player on the roster making that salary or more without a NMC.
It is time for the fanbase and especially the media covering the Hawks to stop fawning all over The Genius Stan Bowman and whatever new suit or beard he is wearing.
And it is time for Bowman to show the fanbase and the media how creative he can be in fixing what ails this organization.
I’ll help: it’s a lack of size, speed and skill on the bottom half of the roster at the NHL level, and a weak talent pipeline.
And before you can say “yeah, but, but . . . DeBrincat,… just remember, at 5’6…, he has not done jack squat in pro hockey as of this writing.
Joel Quenneville gets off no easier.
Peter LaViolette, a good coach in his own right, clearly got the jump on Quenneville in this series. And Quenneville’s team has come out unprepared to match the opponent’s pace and effort in two of the three games.
At some point, you have to be honest with yourself. This is no longer the team that went to three straight conference finals and won 2 Cups in 2013, 2014 and 2015.
Last year, the “we were just one goalpost shot by Brent Seabrook away… excuse was played hard. This year, what’s the excuse?
“Rinne stood on his head.… Stop, he didn’t. The Hawks have barely made him sweat. The Hawks as a team look tired, slow and often disinterested. And afraid.
Much has changed around the Chicago Blackhawks over the last 10-11 years or so. 3 Stanley Cups and an entirely new team culture. But with it has come, over the last few years, a self-congratulatory complacency that the team is now hamstrung by.
I’ll be one of the first (anyway) to say it. Something needs to change. Because the fact is, the Hawks are not going to tear it all down and rebuild. With the totality of their salary structure and contract commitments, they can’t.
Nor really should they. Kane and Toews remain really good players. 38 year old Marian Hossa has probably been the Hawks’ best player on the ice in these playoffs. Keith and Seabrook and Niklas Hjalmarsson are still a great top three. Artemi Panarin is a legitimate star.
But is his new contract an overpay as well? There’s room for debate there. Underscoring the central issue.
It is time—now—for Bowman, and/or this organization (if he can’t do it without approval from above), to look at butchering a sacred cow or two and really re-align the trajectory of this team.
Yes, guys with NMC's can be dealt. Everything is a negotiation.
And far too many fans fall back on recycling the bathwater of past Hawk glories—as though only ex-Hawks or Hawk prospects can help the team. Which gives Bowman a free pass on bargain basement deals for ex-Hawks who are no longer wanted by the rest of the league—and that's because they can’t play anymore. See: Brian Campbell and perhaps Johnny Oduya, who clearly is not the same player he was two years ago.
And if I hear one more fan spew the company line about all the great prospects coming, my head will explode.
Ryan Hartman and Nick Schmaltz had up and down regular seasons (Hartman was pretty good, Schmaltz was spotty) and both pretty much disappeared (or were noticeable for the wrong reasons) in the playoffs. Both are going to be good NHL players, but Schmaltz showed last night and in most of Game 1, he’s not consistently NHL ready.
Richard Panik regressed to his norm, looking a lot more like Richard Zednik than Rocket Richard in these playoffs.
Tyler Motte was a fixture in the AHL this past year. Mark McNeill is gone. Alex Fortin didn’t exactly light up the QMJHL this past season. Alex DeBrincat is, to this point, an OHL legend (as have been many current bartenders) and nothing more.
Funny how things even out over time. A couple of weeks ago, Dale Tallon was re-installed as GM of the Florida Panthers. And this is not a bring back Uncle Dale screed. Rather, just to say a little of Tallon’s bravado and creativity would be very nice this coming summer.
Because the cold hard reality is all these “untouchable… players and contracts add up to nothing more than an “untouchable… version of the 2011 Vancouver Canucks—a high flying, perimeter-playing regular season team that bails itself out in 3-on-3 overtime, and gets exposed and beaten by lunch pail (and I mean that in a very positive way) teams in the first round of the playoffs.
Let’s not entertain any more illusions about that.
It should be a very interesting offseason, especially if this team is serious about getting back into contention.
All I have for now.
JJ