The Chicago Blackhawks are not used to this. This is their time of year, having made five trips to at least the Western Conference Final since 2009 and winning three Stanley Cups since 2010. But nothing is ever guaranteed in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, no matter how great your roster is or how experienced the players are.
After suffering a 3-2 loss to the St. Louis Blues in Game 7 Monday night, the playoffs will continue without the defending champions.
Some might say Chicago was tired. That could be true. They’ve played a ton of hockey over the previous three seasons, winning two Stanley Cups and falling a goal short of reaching three straight Stanley Cup Finals with their loss to the Los Angeles Kings in 2014.
Others would point to the team’s roster dismantling after winning the Cup last season. They had no choice under a tight salary cap. It was very much the same story after Chicago won the title in 2010, only this time they had to start shedding core pieces like Patrick Sharp and Brandon Saad. They also had to part with top-four defenseman Johnny Oduya, leaving a hole that was never adequately filled.
The Blackhawks were still good enough to push the Blues to a Game 7, though. They were still good enough to be a double-post away from tying Game 7. That’s why while Chicago’s title defense is over, their reign among the top teams in the NHL appears far from finished. There will be a lot of work to do to get back to where they feel they should be annually, but they’ve been through this before.
The post-2010 teardown is probably a good reference point to see where this team is now. That team lost key players and the Blackhawks couldn't adequately fill the holes right away. They ended up losing in the first round in 2011 and 2012.
After winning their third Stanley Cup in six years in 2015, they had to shed eight contributors to the title team last summer. Over this season, they made several other trades, notably moving a number of the pieces they acquired in the Sharp and Saad trades, to continue their salary cap gymnastics in an effort to stay in win-now mode. Unfortunately for them, they didn’t work out and they’ll have lost some key assets – most notably their first-round pick in 2016 – for seven games worth of postseason play.
One look at the team’s salary cap situation heading into next season shows that they’re probably going to be losing some more players. It won’t have to be a purge like last year, but there will be a few noticeable differences.
Here’s a look at the road ahead for Chicago:
1. Salary cap will be tight again next season
According to generalfanager.com, the Blackhawks have $63,858,460 committed to 17 players for next season. The salary cap could go up some, but it’s not expected to be a dramatic increase from the $71.4 million the ceiling was set at this season. Some projections have put the cap at $74.5 million next season, which would be music to Stan Bowman’s ears, but nothing is guaranteed yet.
Defenseman Brent Seabrook ($6.875 million AAV) and centers Marcus Kruger ($3.083 million AAV) and Artem Anisimov ($4.55 million AAV) each received multi-year extensions that kick in next season. On top of that, Artemi Panarin hit all of his bonuses for this season, while defenseman Michal Rozsival also hit a bonus. In total, the Blackhawks will have about $2.75 million in bonus overages against their cap next season according to generalfanager.com.
With the new deal to Seabrook, the Blackhawks have now committed nearly $49 million to their Stanley Cup core, which includes Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Duncan Keith, Marian Hossa, Niklas Hjalmarsson and later arrival Corey Crawford.
Panarin, Anisimov and Kruger are all back next year as expensive players outside of the established core. Teuvo Teravainen, Trevor van Riemsdyk, Viktor Svedberg, Erik Gustafsson, Scott Darling and Andrew Desjardins should also be sticking around as players on sub-$1 million contracts already committed to them next season.
2. What happens to Andrew Shaw, Bryan Bickell and others?
The Blackhawks are going to have to make tough decisions. It seems all but certain that trade deadline acquisition Andrew Ladd will be gone via unrestricted free agency. He performed well for the Blackhawks in his return to the team after he was one of the cap casualties following the 2010 Cup win and should command big dollars on the open market.
Then the Blackhawks have to decide what to do with Andrew Shaw. He is a restricted free agent who made $2 million last season. Shaw should be due a raise, but Panarin’s bonus overage is taking away cap space the team very easily could have used to re-sign Shaw.
The two-time Cup winner had a solid season and was one of the team’s most productive forwards in the playoffs. However, he may be more valuable to another team and offers the Blackhawks a trade chip to save some space and recoup some assets. If he does depart, the Blackhawks have former first-round pick Ryan Hartman who could slide into the role Shaw leaves.
Shaw’s tenure in Chicago could potentially be saved, however, if the Blackhawks can find a taker for the last year on Bryan Bickell’s contract. He comes with a $4 million cap hit and spent most of the season in the American Hockey League when he couldn’t produce at the NHL level.
There is also the option of buying Bickell out. According to generalfanager.com's buyout calculator, Chicago would be on the hook for $1 million against the cap in 2016-17 and $1.5 million in 2017-18 if they bought out the final year of the veteran forward's contract. That may end up being the likeliest avenue selected.
Others like Dale Weise, Tomas Fleischmann, Christian Ehrhoff and Michal Rozsival are probably as good as gone. Restricted free agent Richard Panik could be a bit of a wild card in the stay or go category.
3. The pieces are still in place to contend again next season, but the same holes are there
For a lot of teams that spend to the cap, an early first-round exit is devastating. For the Blackhawks, it seems more like a hiccup. Because of their commitment to keeping the best players in their well-established Stanley Cup core together, they’re always going to be in the mix for the title.
Patrick Kane is coming off of the most productive season of his career and found incredible chemistry with Artemi Panarin and Artem Anisimov. They’ll all be back next year and now Panarin has an extra year of experience under his belt after finishing this season as a top-10 scorer.
However, the holes that existed this year could persist next year because they're expensive holes to fill.
The Blackhawks traded for Ladd because they need a top-six left winger. That hole is probably still going to exist next season with Ladd unlikely to return. He ended up playing on the third line in the playoffs anyway. Teuvo Teravainen could be an internal option, even though he is a natural center.
The departure of Johnny Oduya in free agency last year left a hole in the top four defense that was not easily filled. Trevor van Riemsdyk showed some growth this season, but there were times he was overwhelmed in the role. Either he or Erik Gustafsson may have to fill the gap for the time being, unless the Blackhawks find some space to try an external option either through trade or free agency.
Of all the holes, that top-four defense position is probably most in need of an upgrade if Chicago wants to have a better shot at another title. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, the team is willing to sacrifice in order to fill that hole.
Like they had to do this year, the Blackhawks are going to have to fill as many holes as possible with players on cheap contracts. They have plenty at their disposal in the system and can rotate players back and forth between the AHL and NHL rosters.
It is because of their core, however, that Chicago will remain a threat to win the Stanley Cup in 2016-17. Even with some potential holes, many of their core players remain among the best players in the entire NHL at their respective positions. They don’t need a lot of help, but probably a little more than they had this season.
That Stanley Cup window everyone loves to talk about is still wide open in Chicago, even if it will take some more creativity to get back to the top again.
