Bowman Has Some Big Decisions to Make
Hot on the heels of a championship season, Chicago Blackhawks VP and General Manager Stan Bowman has some tough decisions to make.
He has been here before. 2009 was brutal due to contractual challenges. But he overcame and won a championship in 2010.
Then, after the 2010 cup, they had to dump salary. The trades weren’t fair on paper but that’s what happens when you dump. Only took 3 years to win another championship.
But this may be the biggest challenge.
In a hard cap league, and with two superstars alone set to make almost $22M next year, it is going to be hard to balance the books.
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As well, the Hawks had to walk away from an arbitration award to goalie Antti Niemi, and he signed with San Jose.
Yet, somehow, the Hawks still won the Cup again two years later. Neat trick.
Now, after this third Cup under Bowman in six years, he’s again faced with serious issues.
He lost former first rounder Kevin Hayes to the Rangers last summer. He traded away his first round pick to get Antoine Vermette from Arizona and a second rounder for Kimmo Timonen.
Toews and Kane will increase their combined salaries from $12.6 million to $21 million next season, with the salary cap set to nudge upwards to only about $71 million. Bowman has $64 million in salaries tied up in 11 players right now, including three goalies.
Bodies have to go to make sense of this. Bowman has tough decisions to make. He may not be able to re-sign Vermette or Brad Richards. He may have to move Patrick Sharp and/or Bickell, or even Seabrook.
Basically, he’s got to replace proven vets with unproven, cheaper youngsters. If he can make those decisions and keep the Hawks at or near the top of the Western Conference, he’ll need to be a superior judge of talent and the cap.
If he can win another Cup in two years, like he did after dismembering his team in 2010, he’ll be a genius.
So if Bowman is ever going to get his due and been seen as one of the best GMs in the game, it will be from what he does with this championship roster.
Image courtesy of Sean Birm.
