Hands up if you predicted the Chicago Blackhawks would be involved in a sweep during the post-season. Now, keep your hand up if you thought it would be them getting swept.
The Blackhawks cleaned out their lockers on Saturday morning after a disappointing end to a promising season. After a 109-point season, the first-seed Blackhawks scored just three goals in four games against the eighth-seed Nashville Predators.
Usually when teams are eliminated, we find out the injuries that key players were dealing with; famously, Patrice Bergeron played in the 2013 Stanley Cup Finals (vs the Blackhawks) with a separated shoulder, cartilage tear in his ribs, and a punctured lung. However, there have been no notable injuries revealed today. Per Chris Hine of the Chicago Tribune, coach Joel Quenneville said that a few “key guys” were dealing with minor injuries, including Artem Anisimov, who was battling limited mobility. At this point, no players will require off-season surgery, according to Mark Lazerus of the Sun-Times.
General Manager Stan Bowman called the early end to his club’s season a “complete failure” compared to their expectations. The sweep “completely overshadowed” the 50-win season; Bowman promised changes would be coming, but did say that Quenneville will be back as head coach, according to Lazerus. However, Hine reports that Quenneville doesn’t foresee any changes to his coaching staff. Bowman promised that he and Quenneville “are going to work together to make sure this never happens again.”
Roster-wise, the Blackhawks have a few notable players up for new contracts: Richard Panik, Michal Kempny, and Scott Darling are all pending free agents. Bowman refused to comment on their statuses while also not commenting on the possibility of any roster moves involving “core” players. Realistically, Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Artemi Panarin, Duncan Keith, and Brent Seabrook are all un-tradable, either due to their importance to the club or the size of their contracts, or both. The one interesting name could be Corey Crawford; while the sweep is not his fault (the Blackhawks scored just three goals in four games), Bowman played coy when asked whether Crawford would be the starting goaltender next season. Per Hine, Bowman replied, “I’m not going to speculate on anything—who’s going to be here, who’s not going to be here.”
With the expansion draft upcoming and a few teams looking to move goaltenders, it could be difficult to find a taker for Crawford’s $6MM salary, especially at the likely asking price in a trade. Making that move would clear some significant cap space and allow them to keep Darling, who appears to be ready to take on a starting job. It would be the blockbuster of the summer. But as Bowman told Scott Powers of The Athletic, “We didn’t score any goals. It’s hard to win games when you get shutout.”
No matter what happens, it will be a long summer for a team that was expecting a long spring.
Rask for Crawford with other pieces moving around could be interesting. I’m not sure what Rask’s cap hit is but maybe Boston sends Rask, Zboril, a second rounder this year, and a 5th rounder next year, for Crawford, Hjallmarrson or however you spell it, and a 3rd this year and a 6th next year.
No idea why Boston would have any interest in that
All the talk radio hosts yap all day about how they should move Rask, so they do that, get a quality goalie on a shorter term deal, and add a top 4 defenseman that they need while not sacrificing the future. I don’t know much about Zboril, if he’s really valuable, maybe we skip most of the draft compensation and the Hawks just send Boston a 3rdrounder.
As a Bruins fan, I’d rather keep Rask than have Crawford as my goalie (no knock on Crawford). The Bruins really don’t need Hjallmarsson at this point. They have McAvoy & Carlo already in tow and other d-men on the way. Taking on Hjallmarsson’s $4.1 million cap really doesn’t make a lot of sense. The Bruins have a bigger need up front than they do at the back end. They need more scoring depth and would be better served using their cap space to fill that need than by taking Hjallmarsson’s contract
Maybe they are finally starting to regret the contracts to Kane and Towes. Over paid by a couple mill each. If they wantes to win every year they could have taken less and still be paid good. Wouldn’t happen in Detroit. Team first mentality.