Working Against the Cap: Who Can the Blackhawks Afford To Keep?

The NHL salary cap has been slightly increased for the 2009-10 season from $56.7 million to $56.8 million.

This came as a surprise to some NHL general managers, including Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke, who said he’d be shocked if the cap didn’t drop a couple million dollars this season in an interview with a New Jersey newspaper in May.

However, general managers across the league are more concerned with the effect the economy will play on next year's salary cap, with rumors swirling of the cap dropping significantly next season, possibly to $50 million.

Since 2005, the salary cap has gone up significantly each year, allowing teams to have some wiggle room to make offseason acquisitions; however, a drastic fall in the cap could catch teams off-guard and could be a thorn in their side in trying to build a consistently competitive franchise.

One team in particular that worries me is the Chicago Blackhawks.

The Hawks are a team that revamped itself this past season led by offensive young guns Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews, making the playoffs for the first time since 2002 and marching all the way to the Western Conference Finals, where they lost to the Detroit Red Wings in five games.

In the offseason, the Blackhawks signed offensive forward Marian Hossa to a monster 12-year deal, as well as Tomas Kopecky from the Red Wings and John Madden from the New Jersey Devils to short-term contracts.

The Blackhawks are four million dollars over the salary cap going into the 2009-10 season but that isn’t quite what worries me. It’s that as of now there cap hit for 2010-11 is already estimated at $42.5 million.

And that’s with 10 free agents including stars Pat Kane and Jonathan Toews. Luckily for Chicago Toews and Kane are still under rookie contracts which pay them $875,000 each this season otherwise the Hawks cap hit this season would be in the high sixties.

My point is that Toews and Kane’s rookie contracts expire come July 1, 2010, and, if they both live up to the obvious on ice expectations this season, odds are they are going to want deals which pay them upwards of $4 million apiece.

That would make the Hawks cap hit higher then the possible $50 million cap of 2010-11. Leaving them with eight free agents including a backbone defenseman Duncan Keith, who only makes $1.9 million this season, playmaker Andrew Ladd, role players John Madden, Ben Eager, Adam Burish, and other roster-fillers on forward, defense, and between the pipes with very little to no cap space to sign them all.

And, knowing Kane, he’ll fight for every penny he can get...literally. Good luck, Stan Bowman.