Blackhawks Dodge Huge Bullet

The Chicago Blackhawks hit the fast forward button on a couple of players this summer. Call it laziness, or just incompetence, but the Blackhawks were forced to give significant unscheduled raises to Cam Barker and Kris Versteeg this week.

If you are a Hawks fan, you should breathe a sigh of relief that both Barker and Versteeg are still in a Chicago uniform.

In the NHL, there are restricted free agents and unrestricted free agents. Both Barker and Versteeg were of the restricted variety. Teams had until June 29 to make a qualifying offer to RFs or they would become unrestricted free agents.

For some reason Chicago GM Dale Tallon decided to go against the recommendations of the league to fax or courier the offer sheets to respective players. Apparently the offers were postmarked June 29, but that doesn't fly for the NHL, and the seven players who were to receive the qualifying offers became unrestricted free agents. That includes Barker and Versteeg.

This situation could have been disastrous for the Hawks. Worst case, both Versteeg   and Barker hold out and tender offers from other NHL teams. The Blackhawks would then lose two very talented young players that would be anchors of this team for years to come.

Tallon is very lucky both Barker and Versteeg were willing to sign. Not only that, it was reported that Barker could have generated offers upwards of $5 million a season.

Although the Blackhawks did indeed dodge a bullet in this situation that could have been very ugly for the Hawks and their fans, there is still a big issue to deal with. This is an error that cost the Blackhawks organization close to $4 million if not more.

Both players will receive very significant raises, dollars that were not anticipated and that could have pushed the Hawks over the cap. That would have meant losing one or more of those seven players involved.

I don't know what went through the mind of Tallon. Was he just trying to save the organization a little money by sending it in the mail? Because a fax machine usually doesn't cost that much faxing long distance. He can't use the excuse that he doesn't know how to use a fax machine, because I'm sure he's used it to send trade documents or other accepted player offers to the league offices.

Whatever happened, the reality is that Tallon just cost the Blackhawks organization a lot of money, and the effect of signing these players to larger contracts sooner than anticipated will start to show when Cristobal Huet and Brian Campbell want to re-sign come next season.

Fans aren't too worried right now, because Barker and Versteeg are still a part of their organization. You have to wonder what the owners are thinking. If Tallon makes a deal that turns out to be a bust, and it ends up costing $4 million, owners would be upset, but these things happen and sometimes can't be avoided.

This situation could most definitely have been avoided. I don't care why it happened. The truth is that Tallon is paid a lot of money to do his job, and apparently there are parts of his job that may have seemed minute, but cost $4 million. Do you take that out of his pay cheque?

This is a very young and talented organization that is in Chicago. With the salary cap pretty much staying the same, and maybe going down next year, cap room would be very valuable. Most of that room is now gone.

Mr. Tallon, you better hope your team brings a Stanley Cup very soon, because the longer it takes, the more the effects of your blunder have an opportunity to show themselves, and not everyone will take that much of a pay cut to stay in Chicago.

One word of advice from here. Start stockpiling draft picks, because you'll only be able to afford entry level players if any one of your current players wants a raise anytime soon.