Blackhawks Summer Time Mailbag Blog Is Now Live

The fireworks are over and the dust has settled, sort of, and now it’s time to really look at the coming season. The new cycle to make the Blackhawks great again.

We are going to treat this like a townhall and I will now take your questions, of which I am sure there are many.

We’ll start with an easy one

Yes, yes he is. I LOVE John Weideman and it’s a shame that I seldom get to hear him just because I am usually at the game or plopped in front of my TV these days. In my previous life there were many times where I had to work late and I’d catch the first period of the game on the radio in the car on my way home. He’s so good that it’d take the sting out of missing the game on TV. Also in that previous life I used to play in a late night Wednesday invite skate over where the Flames used to play in Glen Ellyn. John Weidenman would show up many times. We’d cajole him into turning his broadcaster voice on in the locker room and pitch him catchphrases. He was the best.

I don’t know what Pat Foley’s future plans are at 64 years old and he should be allowed to do the job as long as he wants. Should Foley decide he wants to retire the Blackhawks should just move Weideman over from the radio side because he is the only guy I’d want to fill Pat Foley’s shoes.

NEXT question

I still have the list. Honestly, how to use this list became a little more complicated once I went full-time. I still want to figure out how to do a loyalty program where the people who buy Hawks related merch on the Barstool Store get rewarded somehow, but it’s something I would need to talk to Erika and the powers that be about before implementing. I am open to suggestions on that. In the meantime just know I appreciate all of you.

I am going to lump these two questions together. The answer is…I really don’t know. The defense has been improved on paper, but I really think there are some difficult questions to answer about this group going forward on the ice because it isn’t obvious to me how this all fits together. I still believe that Duncan Keith is their best overall defender. That’s not a big leap to make even with the addition of De Haan. Who do you pair him with? Many people just assume it’s going to be Gustafsson because they finished last year together and the Hawks have Keith, De Haan, and Maatta penciled in on the left side, BUT…I still don’t think that is how you optimize Keith’s value because even though Gustafsson has improved defensively and he’s when he’s skating up ice, he’s still a liability in his own zone. That’s still a fact. I personally would trade him now while his value is still high. Waiting to trade him as a rental at the deadline or letting him walk only decreases the return you’d be able to get from him AND…if you move Gustafsson now that would open up a spot on the right side for Jokiharju that there doesn’t currently appear to be.

Let’s assume the general thinking though:

Keith-Gustafsson

De Haan-Seabrook

Maatta-Murphy

I mean…that is not great and every pairing has some serious flaws. You got De Haan to play in your top 4, but is that an effective second pairing if he’s hitched to Seabrook? Probably not, but you can’t go with Maatta-Seabrook in the 3rd pair because that would be the worst skating d-pairing in the league. With this group I don’t see a pathway to maximizing everyone’s ability.

Which is why I never liked the Maatta trade to begin with. The Hawks would’ve been better off just acquiring De Haan because then your pairings could look like this

Keith-Jokiharju

De Haan-Murphy(shut down pairing)

Gustafsson-Seabrook

You give that 3rd pairing sheltered minutes and specialized minutes(PP) and hope that Gustafsson’s improved play at times in the second half allows him to play effectively with Seabrook as the guy who can win races and move the puck up and out of the zone. It also allows Jokiharju to play with Keith who he was very good with at the beginning of last season. I don’t think it’s a slam dunk that Jokiharju is a top 4 defenseman, but in this scenario you can at least find out before you need to make a decision about him vs Boqvist vs Mitchell.

The reality now is that they Blackhawks are going to have $11M tied up in defenseman who realistically should be 3rd pairing types or worse. That is…not good. Especially when the Blackhawks have to worry about signing Debrincat and Strome next summer. Stan says he’s not worried about the Cap…I think he should be. There’s a real chance that the cap stays relatively flat for the next couple of years until the new US TV deal is worked out ahead of the CBA expiring. It makes me uncomfortable to say the least especially because it’s soemthing that has bitten Stan in the past.

Perhaps i am being naive, but I’d like to think that Dach’s ability to make the team doesn’t have much to do with the Anisimov situation. If he’s good enough, he’s good enough. Meaning that if the Hawks feel he’s one of their best 9 forwards then he should be on the team. Anisimov is probably one of their best 9 right now. Dach would likely break in on the wing so I don’t really see the connection between him and Anisimov, per se.

The Blackhawks can’t be done making moves because realistically they’re over the cap right now. Right now on capfriendly they have 8 dmen and 10 forwards. They need to fill 3 more roster spots. When you bring up Sikura, Kubalik, and Quenneville they are over the cap. Can’t have that. I think that the Hawks are probably having discussions about Anisimov, but teams now know that Stan is over the barrell as it pertains to the cap in the immediate future. Even though Anisimov is still a pretty solid player, teams know that they should be able to get him for next to nothing or perhaps even with a sweetener attached. Feels like maybe a waiting game. A game of chicken. But the situation doesn’t favor Stan right now. If it were me I would definitely try to package Gustafsson and Anisimov together. The PP might take a hit, but maybe the success it had last year was more about tactics than any one player. I’d like to think that a group with Toews, Kane, Strome, and Debrincat can still be pretty effective with Keith or Jokiharju running the top unit.

Well it would be John giving that extension to Stan, not Rocky. The thinking is probably that an extension prevents Stan from making desperation moves in order to make the playoffs and save his job. Moves like picking up a $4M 3rd pair pair defenseman who can’t skate and was scratched in the playoffs by a Pittsburgh team that got swept because their defense wasn’t good enough. Hypothetically. That is the thinking. Realistically if the Blackhawks don’t make the playoffs Stan is going to get fired whether he signs the extension or not. John doesn’t care about any potential future payments to an unemployed Bowman the same way he didn’t care about payments to an unemployed Joel Quenneville because John is one writing the checks, but Rocky is the one that signs them. He can piss away Rocky’s money forever.

Which leads to the last question that nobody asked:

Are the Blackhawks going to make a return to the playoffs?

I think the Blackhawks look better. I expect them to be a little better defensively because the personell is better and they’ll have a full year+a full training camp under Colliton’s system. The goaltending should also be better. I don’t think that is necessarily enough to guarantee a spot back in the playoffs just because the Central looks like murderers row again.

Colorado got better

Dallas got better

St Louis probably stayed the same and you know…they just won the Stanley Cup

Nashville got better.

The only playoff team in the Central that looks worse on paper than last year is Winnipeg. Winnipeg should still be in that second wild card discussion with the Blackhawks.

I think it is asking a lot of Toews and Kane to both produce career years offensively again in 2019-20. Let’s say that Kane finishes with 100 points instead of 110 and Toews finishes with like 72 instead of 81. And who knows, maybe Debrincat only score 35 goals. Will the defensive improvement be good enough to not only make up the difference for a normalization in production from the top of the lineup, but also carry them from 84 points to somewhere in the neighborhood of 97 or 98? That is a BIG jump. The reason I kept banging the drum last year for the Blackhawks to make a run for the last wild card spot was because it was obviously more possible given the way the rest of the West was playing. It only took 90 points to make the playoffs last year. It was attainable for the Blackhawks last year because the quality of competition wasn’t there. With the 4 teams I mentioned above all improving AND both Arizona and Vancouver looking much better on paper I think it is safe to assume that the 2nd wild card spot will require around 96 points. That’s 6 more wins. That’s a lot. I am happy with the direction of the team and I hope they’re back in the playoffs but I wouldn’t bet on it.