Saad’s success could be costly for Chicago
Restricted free agent could be on radar of many teams when season comes to an end
CHICAGO— If there is a danger to the Chicago Blackhawks’ continued playoff success it is the nagging feeling that this group of players will be broken up over the summer. Win or lose.
The salary cap could tear them apart. And one name that other GMs are keeping an envious eye on is Brandon Saad as the Stanley Cup final moves to Tampa for Game 5, all tied at two games apiece.
The 22-year-old left winger is having one heck of a playoffs. The power forward has eight goals, including the game-winner in Game 4 when he used each of his assets — size, strength, speed and will — to power through the Tampa crease and get a backhander past Andrei Vasilevskiy.
“He’s a fun player to watch,” said teammate Patrick Sharp. “Seems like, I don’t know, what is he 21, 22 years old? He looks like a grown man out there. He takes the puck, tells everybody what he’s going to do with it and bulls people over and gets to that net either way. It’s nice to see him putting the puck in the net.”
If the 2011 draft could be redrawn based on what is known now, there’s no way Saad goes 43rd where the Blackhawks got him. His 208 regular-season games played is fifth among that draft class. His126 points is tied for third — interestingly with Tampa’s Ondrej Palat, a seventhrounder — from that draft class.
Chicago coach Joel Quenneville plays Saad — whom he calls fearless — in all situations, including on the power play and killing penalties. His teammates love him.
“The best characteristic to his game is not necessarily his flat-out skill, his skating, all the tangible parts of his game that you can see first-hand,” said Chicago captain Jonathan Toews. “I think when he came into the league, he was always pushing himself every night. He was assuming more responsibility, whether it was scoring goals or playing two-way hockey.
“I think he just keeps showing that,” Toews added. “I think he just assumes that responsibility and he wants to be one of the best players, he wants to contribute. Obviously, our team is having a lot of success this post-season. He’s a big reason why.”
What’s intriguing about Saad is that he’s a restricted free agent. That means Blackhawks GM Stan Bowman can control Saad’s fate and Saad, to a degree, can control the Blackhawks’.
How deals with a young player like Saad typically play out are two- or three-year deals, somewhere in the $3-million range. Think P.K. Subban’s two-year, $5.75 million deal in 2013 that predates his current eightyear $72 million deal.
But as a restricted free agent, Saad could shop himself to other teams. If they make an offer, Bowman could match. Or he could let Saad go and take the compensation in the form of draft picks. Most likely it would be the other team’s first-, second- and third-round picks in the 2016 draft.
Offer sheets like these are rare — some say an under-used tool in the rule book — but the Blackhawks fell victim to it in 2010 after they won the Stanley Cup. The San Jose Sharks came looking for defenceman Niklas Hjalmarsson. He had made $666,000 that year and was RFA. He signed a four-year, $14-million deal with the Sharks. The Blackhawks matched. But the Hjalmarsson deal — in conjunction with other salaries — had an effect on Blackhawks’ salary structure. They had to let goalie Antti Niemi go — as well as other key components of that roster — Andrew Ladd, Dustin Byfuglien and Kris Versteeg, to name a few.
The Sharks signed Niemi. Some believe that was the Sharks’ play all along: Force the Hawks to choose while meddling with their salary cap position.
A division rival would be wise to make Saad an offer if only to screw with the Blackhawks just a little bit more.