The Blackhawks will be down at least one veteran defenseman for their Qualifying Round series against Edmonton as Brent Seabrook told reporters today, including Charlie Roumeliotis of NBC Sports Chicago (Twitter link) that he will not be part of the roster that reports to the bubble later this weekend.
The veteran has had a rough year, to put it lightly. He struggled considerably to start the season as his playing time dipped to 18:09 per game, a career low while his offensive output plummeted to just three goals and an assist in 32 contests. At that time, he was shut down for the rest of the season due to injury. Since then, Seabrook has had surgery on both hips and his right shoulder.
He resumed skating recently in the hopes of being available for their series against the Oilers but there would have been some risk in asking him to come back quicker than originally anticipated. Instead, Seabrook will use the rest of this offseason to get ready for the 2020-21 campaign. With training camps for that being roughly three months away as things stand, he should be ready to go. Considering he still has four years left on his contract after this season with a $6.875MM cap hit, Chicago will certainly be hoping that with the extended recovery time, Seabrook will be able to provide more than third pairing minutes moving forward.
Poor Seabs is going to have to work on his tan for Robidas Island…
Is the nhl doing a compliance buyout? Has something like that been negotiated or already struck down? Seabrook will always be a legend in Chicago…it’s hard to watch at this point though
@parx – We all thought that was inevitable, thanks to COVID-caused revenue loss, but most sources I read/heard said it was never discussed during CBA negotiations. Many of them said owners didn’t have the appetite for it, which seemed a little strange. It wasn’t until the leaks came about some owners getting hit hard with their main money making businesses that explained that stance a bit better.
Not surprising. Coming off 3 major surgeries since January, I didn’t think he’d even be skating with the team right now.
Cutting Scotty and Stan Bowman from the picture is long overdue.