Why Blackhawks and Pens are more alike than not
Both teams have handled salary-cap issues with care
With the National Hockey League’s salary cap, the Chicago Blackhawks are like the wedding guest who has gorged himself.
When it’s time to form the limbo line, the Hawks would have to contort themselves to pass under the bar, while others do so with relative ease. But the Hawks aren’t alone in their struggles of excess. Their opponent Wednesday, the Pittsburgh Penguins, have the same problem.
The Hawks went through a fresh round of salary-cap hell last season thanks to the $10.5-million-per-year extensions for Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane.
A first-round playoff exit last year raised concerns that the Hawks couldn’t manoeuvre around the cap and still be Stanley Cup contenders.
Then the Penguins won the Stanley Cup — good news for the Hawks. Why? Because the Hawks and Penguins are built in similar ways. The Penguins, with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, have superstars playing on expensive long-term contracts, just like the Hawks. Both teams have about $38 million tied up in their top five cap hits — over half their cap space. After acquiring Phil Kessel ($6.8-million cap hit) in a trade before last season, league observers were scratching their heads, wondering how the Penguins would make this all work.
The answer was just fine.
As they met Wednesday night, the Penguins and Hawks were primed to be major players in the post-season.
“A lot of organizations (would) like to be in the situations Chicago and Pittsburgh are in,” Penguins general manager Jim Rutherford said. “We’re very fortunate we have the world-class players we have, and what you have to do is build around those guys. When you have those bigger contracts, you’re always going to be up against the cap.”
That’s a similar philosophy to the one Hawks general manager Stan Bowman espouses when he pontificates about the Hawks’ cap problems. Bowman says it’s better to have players who require large cap hits than to constantly have to search for them. In other words, it’s better to have Kane, Toews, Marian Hossa and Duncan Keith on your team and figure out the rest later.
But two things have to happen for this type of roster building to work, two things that went right for the Penguins last season in the playoffs but didn’t for the Hawks.
First, your superstars need to play like it. For all the talk about the Hawks’ lack of defensive depth, Toews and Kane combined for just one goal in that series against the Blues. The Penguins got production from their stars, and they won the Cup.
Second, you need to hit on your supporting cast. If you’re going to have big contracts on your team, you need to surround those players with viable NHL talent on the cheap.
Both the Hawks and Penguins have several players, especially forwards, with cap hits under $1 million. And they have players, like Ryan Hartman and Richard Panik for the Hawks and Conor Sheary for the Penguins, who are overperforming their contracts.
This is where the Hawks are better than they were a season ago. With the emergence of players like Hartman, Panik, Tanner Kero and Nick Schmaltz, the Hawks’ forward depth is better than it was a season ago. That cheap forward production allowed Bowman to add veteran depth on the blue-line in Brian Campbell and Johnny Oduya.
And now the Hawks are primed for another serious Cup run while the Penguins are right there with them looking to repeat, salary cap be damned.
We’re very fortunate we have the world-class players we have … JIM RUTHERFORD