On the surface, the announcement today of a 2-year contract extension for Blackhawk winger Richard Panik caused a few jaws to hit the floor.
Panik had a nice sophomore season in Chicago, netting 44 points and leading the team in hits. His combination of size, speed, snarl and enough skill is what the Hawks clearly need more of, not less.
But Panik was an RFA—you would think the Hawks had more leverage.
And after two straight first round exits from the playoffs, and years of salary cap hell, most Hawk fans have come around to grasp the basic math of what the Hawks under Stan Bowman have been doing for several years: paying big money and term to retain talent—and at the same time, making it next to impossible to add any talent (other than rookies on entry level contracts and league minimum veterans).
That formula, by most sane metrics, has failed.
You would think the Hawks themselves get this. And so committing nearly $3 million a year to just keep a “pretty OK guy… around wasn’t the big, encouraging pr move and roster improvement the Hawks are rumored to be looking for.
Which leads to another potential possibility, a theory safely this side of tin foil hat conspiracy.
Perhaps this is the first of a series of planned moves—at least one of which involving losing a significant salary or two—and possibly bringing some new, proven talent onto the roster.
This is possible. Because the alternative—continuing the ongoing paradigm of arguably overpaying to keep certain, current roster players, and simultaneously limiting yourself to rookies and league minimum veterans for improvement—hasn’t worked.
Please read the following carefully. I don’t want to be misconstrued.
My gut sense is this is the first of a string of moves—and at least one bigger move is to come—in re-calibrating the Hawk roster this summer.
If not, and we start to soon hear about the 9 draft picks the Hawks hold in June (5 of which are in rounds 5 and 6), and the promise of Alex DeBrincat, folks, the Hawk front office is officially broken. And/or the team is unofficially in full rebuild mode.
This is not to say, broken record time, that Debrincat is a bad prospect or won’t be a good NHL player. At all.
I honestly don’t know how good he’ll be.
You don’t either.
And while the Hawks employ the people best qualified to make that judgement—pro scouts and coaches—even they can’t predict with any certainty how well or how quickly Debrincat will make the significant leap from playing against 16-19 year olds in Guelph and Barrie, to playing against men in the NHL.
It is not accurate nor fair to even remotely assume, because Patrick Kane made the leap from the OHL to the NHL, that DeBrincat can. Because he’s not Kane.
Similar? Actually, yeah. Although DeBrincat is more of a sniper/scorer type than Kane who arguably sets up better than scores (but does both, well, pretty amazingly).
DeBrincat is an undersized RW with a lot of competitiveness and loads of talent in his hands. But where does he fit in on the Hawks—assuming he’s really even ready for the NHL?
The Hawks really need a speed left wing, followed by another center who’s 50%+ in the faceoff dot (in pro hockey), and a plausible backup goalie.
They really don’t have a spot for another scoring right wing right now, especially not after recently gilding one of the three they have (Panik).
I’ll say what you may be thinking: “Yeah, but can’t DeBrincat play left wing? Or Center?…
I don’t know, but we don’t even know if he can play in the NHL right now or this year—now you want him to play out of position, too? Like the lessons of Andrew Shaw, Panik, Marko Dano, and Nick Schmaltz the last couple of years haven’t really sunk in yet?
Debrincat has good quickness and elusiveness, but he lacks high-end speed—and that at the junior level, which was rumored to have kept him off this past year’s USA World Junior team, in spite of gaudy OHL scoring numbers.
So, nice prospect? Definitely. 2017-18 Blackhawk solution? Highly doubtful.
And now that hopefully we’ve put that conundrum/pipe dream to bed (for now), and getting back to reality, we’re going to have to wait and see where this Panik move is leading, especially with expansion coming up as well.
All for now, more as I hear it.
JJ