I think you're missing what some people are getting at. The issue is what was Bowman's larger plan in making these trades.
- bhawks2241
So first, let me explain what I meant by my post.
Burying cap hits: This board has been up in arms since Oduya signed with Dallas about David Rundblad's contract, as though Rundblad's deal somehow foreclosed signing Oduya. If only the Hawks had parted ways with Rundblad, Oduya would have returned and we'd be winning the cup. What was Rundblad's cap hit, buried in the AHL and in Europe? A whopping $100k. That's not the reason we didn't sign Oduya. The fallout from the Sharp trade is.
Flipping players for picks: This is another theme that keeps popping up, probably because of the rumor JJ posted around the draft. People seem to think that the Blackhawks were going to be able to trade Sharp for draft picks without taking any salary back. Question: who exactly was going to do that? A low-salary rebuilding team wouldn't. A high-salary contender wouldn't have the cap space to take on $5.9m extra. The only remotely plausible scenario, then, would have been trading Sharp to a contending team that had $6m sitting around that had no better use than to pay for an aging middle-six winger. So which team was that?
If Stan Bowman had the chance to move Sharp for two second-round draft picks -- straight up, no strings attached -- and blew it, he's either a fool or his hands were tied by a fool.
Value in a hard-cap league and opportunity cost: A lot of folks here debate the relative merits of X player vs. Y player, or the absolute merits of Z player. That's absolutely fine for hockey discussion. But when you start talking roster construction, absolute value goes out the window because you have a hard cap. I don't mean just that we have to think about cap hits. I mean that every decision you make has to be based on the number of wins the player is worth relative to the size of that cap hit. Bryan Bickell at $1m is a wash. Bryan Bickell at $4m is a disaster. Artemi Panarin at $3.25m or whatever his hit is when you include his bonuses is a bargain. Artemi Panarin at $7m is close to a wash.
While I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there's a GM or two out there who doesn't get this, most of them surely do. Which is why, going back to Sharp, you'd have to be an idiot* to trade away two second-round draft picks, which represent two decent shots at securing an NHL-caliber player at a very low cost for a few years, for a player costing $6m against your cap who is probably worth more like $3m or $4m.
Now, take opportunity cost into account. If that team acquires Sharp, then it's missing an opportunity to acquire a different player (or different players) who could contribute more on the ice.* Here's the exception to what I just said. If there's a team with the space to take on Sharp, and if Sharp's going to put your team over an important threshhold -- say, playoff team to cup contender -- then it would make sense for you to do it. The Phil Kessel trade is a perfect example of this.
What all of this adds up to is that Patrick Sharp's trade value was not anything near what we might think if we only consider his merits as a hockey player.
Okay. You discussed some specific transactions that I have some thoughts on.
You're telling me they could not have got a better offer for Leddy that summer? How many D of his caliber at his age are ever available? We got back Pokka in return and it looks like he will never make the Hawks or at best be #6.
- bhawks2241
I agree that Leddy was probably worth more than what the Hawks received in return. It would have been a much better idea to move him before July 1, when rosters are not settled and teams have more flexibility. Compare what they got for Leddy to what they got for Saad, and the Saad transaction was RFA rights only. Leddy still had a year left at a relatively low hit.
2 2nds for Kimmo? What?
- bhawks2241
Chicago got absolutely fleeced there. I have no idea what anybody was thinking. This trade would have been horrible even if it had cost the Hawks only one second-round pick.
You could have traded Daley for a low pick and saved the additional cap space.
- bhawks2241
If you can do it, that's great, but you run into the problem, again, of trading a player with a $4m or so hit who isn't quite worth that. Especially after July 1, you're virtually guaranteed to have to take salary back, which is...
I have no idea why the Hawks wanted anything to do with Scuds
- bhawks2241
...exactly why this trade happened the way it did.
and now that is a 1 mil plus we don't have next year.
- bhawks2241
When the Hawks traded for Ehrhoff, I breathed a sigh of relief because that was Scuderi's cap hit off the books. Then they retained salary. Um, okay. Who exactly in the organization wanted Ehrhoff, anyway? Completely bizarre.
The Hawks did not have any cap issues at the time they traded Daley. He had value and a decent cap hit.
- bhawks2241
This is simply not true. They had two very serious and very pressing cap issues: they needed to open space for deadline acquisitions, and they needed to open space to absorb Panarin's bonus overages. They also needed to open space for the contract extensions kicking in the following summer, but they could have moved Daley after the season for that.
Runny pants? Um... better options to be had at a slightly lower or equal cap hit. That is 2 mil in cap space we desperately need this off-season.
- bhawks2241
As I explained above, Rundblad on the Blackhawks might be a $1.05m cap hit, but off the Blackhawks, he's only a $100k hit. Less, potentially, if the minimum salary increases in the offseason.If Rundblad is good enough to be on the NHL roster, a $1m hit is fine for a bottom-pair defenseman. If he's not, then you can bury him without creating an issue for yourself.
Bowman seems to be a step slow, over confident, or lacking a long term vision.
- bhawks2241
The first two may very well be true.
The Saad-Anisimov trade was neither slow nor overconfident. The Leddy trade was slow. The Sharp trade may have been overconfident.
As for long-term vision... I think he's acting in accordance with one, just not a very good one.
He's identified his "core" and locked them up. His intent is to build the rest of the roster around them. That's a perfectly fine strategy, assuming you have a good enough value in your core.
Unfortunately, the Hawks don't. Keith and Hjalmarsson are on excellent contracts. Everybody else is a wash or slightly worse. Seabrook in particular is going to be a major problem, I think. It is very unfortunate that they don't really have an in-house replacement for him, because I think it would have been much better in the long term for them to have let him walk after this past season. I know some people think that their in-house replacement is in Dallas now. I don't have an opinion on that because I don't know anything about prospect projection.
Let's take the Danault situation in its entirety. Traded Brouwer for a 1st. Fine with that. We selected Danault and developed him. Looks like he will be a really really solid bottom 6 guy. We then move him for Weise and Fleischman, who Q refuses to play, and they have little impact. Even if they do play doubt they get us a Cup.
- bhawks2241
We can speculate about the latter, but trading away an apparently good, young player on an ELC for two players on expiring contracts who aren't even given the opportunity to contribute, really, is a major mistake. This trade is going to cost the Blackhawks going forward.
Our net gain from trading Brouwer is ZERO.
- bhawks2241
No doubt about that. Just an awful trade under the circumstances.
The same can be said about the Sharp trade and it appears the Leddy trade as well. These are high caliber NHL players getting moved for nothing.
- bhawks2241
This is true only if you think that those players were going to be able to stay in Chicago. They weren't.
The Sharp trade -- part of the price of which was Stephen Johns, which should not be forgotten -- has ultimately opened roughly $4m in cap space. I think that just about pays for the extensions that are kicking in this summer.
The Leddy trade returned Ville Pokka.
We may think those are BAD values, but it's not nothing.
This is the type of reasoning I was talking about when I mentioned production versus cap hit. It's not enough to say that a player is high caliber. How much are they getting paid? How long is their contract? How much do they contribute relative to their cap hit? Those are the kinds of questions that need to be answered before you can evaluate a player's trade value.
We get cap space from the trades. Great awesome. I understand the value and that a players cap hit can lower their trade value regardless of the skills they posses. BUT ANY GM can trade guys for cap space. I could sit there and trade high quality NHLers away for cap space. I expect more from the Hawks front office.
- bhawks2241
When was the last time a player with a cap hit measurably above what he brought to the table as a player was traded for draft picks without taking salary back? For that matter, when was the last time ANY player with a significant cap hit was dealt with no salary coming back?
Nobody in the NHL is able to dump their cap problems on other teams AND come out with shiny high-round draft picks. Maybe that was true in the past -- I haven't paid close enough attention to know -- but it's certainly not happening right now. This isn't NHL 16.
Teams can't afford to trade away these type caliber players for literally nothing. That is what causes a dominant team, in the salary cap era, to slowly decay. Death by a thousand paper cuts. Or in this case maybe a few big ones.
- bhawks2241
I agree with you that these trades have chipped away at the Blackhawks' depth. But they were the product of mistakes that had already been made. Bickell's disaster of a contract comes to mind. Roszival's unnecessary prior deal. A pair of $10.5m contracts do, too, though I think the jury's still out on whether they were worth it.
This cap system punishes you harshly for overvaluing players if you're fielding a roster full of quality veterans, as the Hawks are. Don't mistake the consequences of the mistake -- the cap forcing your hand in a trade -- for the mistake itself, which may be as little as $2m too much committed to a couple players.
I love 3 cups in 6 years. It has been unreal but this team has had boat loads of talent come and go. Why be satisfied with 3 when you have and have had the talent for more. People need to realize how lucky the Hawks got with Panarin. Say he's a bust. Say TVR is a bust. The Hawks would be sitting here with 2 legit top 6 players and 2 borderline ones in Hossa and Anisimov and three legitimate NHL Defensemen and then nothing else. The scouting department has found some real gems that have saved Bowman's behind. The none FA moves made by him have been brutal.
- bhawks2241
Out of curiosity, why does Bowman get the blame for trades you think were bad but not the credit for signing quality players that his scouting department unearthed?
Also, I'm not sure exactly who you think the Hawks should have picked up in free agency, hell, I'm not sure why you think the Hawks had ROOM to sign free agents, but free agent contracts are generally poor values.
The Saad trade does not impress me. You were able to move a 23 year old top line power wing for a prospect and 2/3 center. A lot of meh you did your job at a competent level then wow our team is better off. Bowman just mitigating losses doesn't do it for me. Repeatedly losing high quality NHL players for nothing can't happen.
- bhawks2241
No. You were able to move the RIGHTS to a 23-year-old top-six power winger -- who signed for $6m/6y, which was pretty much what he was worth -- in exchange for a very good prospect who had seen success in limited NHL player time and a middle-six center who you were able to lock up with a contract paying him probably about what he's worth and possibly somewhat less than you would have paid on the open market. Was that trade a steal? Heck no. Could a case be made that the Hawks came out of it worse? I don't think so, because they sure weren't going to be able to afford Saad. I guess it could be argued that the Jackets ultimately got more out of it than the Hawks did, but who cares?
Finally, whoever mentioned the Top 6 LW being our big issue now is spot on. We saw Kane take whatever 2C he was given and carry that line. He makes that line tick. Now we have a hole on 1LW. It is clear that Toews does not have that same ability. My thoughts are move Panarin to Toews wing permanently and let Kane make whatever scrub LW you put with him look good.
- bhawks2241
One hole filled opens up another one. The cap sucks. I hate it.
Rant over. Sorry!
- bhawks2241
Not as long as mine!
Also, pre-emptive apologies if I'm coming off as a Richard. I'm just... passionate.
