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Expectations Are High In Chicago

by Paul on 08/07/09 at 07:43 AM ET
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from Dan Rosen of NHL.com,

A successful spring led directly into a whirlwind summer for the NHL’s newest “it” team, but the Chicago Blackhawks remain on strong footing despite the somewhat surprising change at the top from Dale Tallon to Stan Bowman.

“It’s fair to say expectations are high,” Bowman, the Blackhawks’ new general manager, told NHL.com. “I like our team.”

There’s a lot to like, what with the additions of Marian Hossa, John Madden and Tomas Kopecky to last season’s Western Conference Finalists. Bowman’s task now is to keep it all together.

How he plans to do that seems to be the biggest question around the Blackhawks today.

continued

Filed in: NHL Teams, Chicago Blackhawks | KK Hockey | Permalink
 

Comments

The general assumption is the salary cap will go down for the 2010-11 season, leaving the Hawks, who are operating at upper limit of the salary cap now, in quite a bind…

If by “upper limit” of the cap, Rosen means $2+M over the cap, then that’s an accurate statement.

SALARY CAP:  $56,800,000
PAYROLL:        $58,928,248
CAP SPACE:     $2,128,258 over

“I think it’s dangerous to speculate because it doesn’t really benefit anybody,” Bowman said.

Yeah, it especially doesn’t “benefit” those who screwed the whole qualifying-offer process up and drove up the price of this year’s group of RFAs.

“There is no pressure now,” Bowman said. “We don’t have to make a move to affect our team for this season. We may choose to as we look down the road.”

So does that mean Stan is planning on using the bonus clause in the CBA to keep his team $2M over the cap? That certainly removes pressure this year. But that money will get added to their salary total next year when they’ll need even more room to sign Kane, Toews, Ladd and Keith. Scotty should smack his boy upside the head and wake him up.

Could that mean Bowman will put Patrick Sharp on the trading block? What about Brian Campbell and his big contract? Would he try to move goaltender Cristobal Huet if Corey Crawford and/or Antti Niemi step up?

Only one of those three scenarios has a snowball’s chance in hell of ever happening.

Posted by OlderThanChelios from Grand Rapids on 08/07/09 at 10:39 AM ET

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