In Bowman We Trust

Tommie Lee
Jul 3, 2014
4 min read

(AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast, File)

SACRIFICES

The team Lord Stanley Bowman is putting together is worth smiling about.

Before the draft last weekend, the Blackhawks agreed to two-year extensions with Ben Smith and Annti Raanta. Smitty gets 1.5 Million per annum, and the Finnish Wall gets $750,000. Raanta pretty much looked like Patrick Roy after the abysmal performance of Nikolai Khabibulin and certainly earned a nice deal.

A few hours later on Friday, Jeremy Morin re-upped for two years at 800-grand worth of cap hit apiece. In recent days we’ve also agreed to deals with Peter Regin and the Rangers’ Brad Richards. Lack of a player like Richards at second line center was arguably the main issue that kept us from beating LA, a gaping hole the Kings exploited with surgical accuracy. Reaction to the Richards signing has been mixed on the blogs, but the more I think about it…the more I like it. A year of Richards is the perfect bridge to Teuvo Teravainen the following season. Another year to get the kid ready for the show would be optimal.

As of this writing Wednesday night, these moves put the Blackhawks about 2 million over the $69 million-dollar cap. So, who do we shed? Peeling off a piece of our struggling defense is a possibility, but whom? I’d say Michal Rozival is the call to make there. He only played half the season and didn’t look particularly impressive. On the “O” side, Kris Versteeg is less valuable already than Morin and makes over a million dollars more.

We also cannot discount the possibility of something huge, like an unloading of Patrick Sharp. Sharp may have been on a milk carton for the most part in the playoffs, but he had a more than respectable season. He has value. And like many things of value…he is expensive. I’m very torn about the idea, but if someone big has to be sacrificed I’d rather it be #10.

WONDER TWINS

As of this writing, the team still has not secured signatures from the dynamic duo. Captain Jonathon Toews and Patrick Kane deserve a pair of huge paydays, and the number 12,000,000 keeps getting thrown around. We have to remember that if the Blackhawks won’t pony up that kind of money (they will), these guys would have no problem getting that salary from any other team. Hell…I think the Whalers would be willing to pay $12 million for either of them…and they don’t even exist any more.

ROSTER CHILDREN

Ah, the draft. Wrap yourself up in the sacred red sweaters and let’s take a look at the fresh batch of younglings.

Last week, I said I know nothing about drafting talent. I stand by that statement. I mentioned two names that I had read articles about, a couple of players who intrigued me. It’s nothing more than a coincidence that the first one ended up being our first pick in the draft.

Centerman Nick Schmaltz came to us with that 20th pick. He’s described as a fast skater who grew up a Blackhawks fan in Chicago, and was most recently playing for Green Bay in the USHL.

Bowman traded away Brandon Bollig so we could move up in the third round. The B52 will now soar over the remote NHL frontier town of Calgary. I’m sure you’ve managed to shed all the tears you’re going to by now about that trade. Losing Bollig meant moving up to pick #83 to snag USHL sharpshooter Matheson Iacoepelli.

Don’t ask me how to pronounce it: I’ve only recently mastered “Teravainen.”

The next two picks for Chicago were wingers Beau Starrett (he’s 6’5”) and Frederik Olofsson, the latter of the USHL Chicago Steel. Freddy’s name alone suggests he should be good; that’s a serious-looking Hockey name. With a name like Olofsson you have to either play Hockey, fish for crab in the Bering Sea, or toss capers.

There’s been a healthy smattering of web chatter about fifth round pick Luc Snuggerud, who lines up on defense for Omaha in the USHL and has another awesome name. He played high school hockey at the same school as Nick Leddy. Andreas Söderberg was next, a defenseman from the Swedish league.

We had back-to-back picks in the 6th. The first was Dylan Sikura, a center from the Ontario junior league. Ivan Nalimov was the other. He’s a goalie from Russia’s KHL. I looked him up. He’s 20 and looks 12. He catches left and is supposedly very good. If he ever wants to play in the USA, he’s ours.

Chicago’s last pick was Jack Ramsey, winger, BCHL. It’s apparently in British Columbia. I had to look it up. His dad was on the 1980 US Olympic team, which is awesome. Hastag legacy.

Our top pick, Schmaltz, is headed to North Dakota. They build Toewses there, you know. Bowman padded the future well this past weekend, which was his goal.

Final note: Wednesday also saw Chicago sign Defenseman Kyle Cumiskey. He’s a former Av and Duck who spent the last two seasons skating for Modo in the Swedish League (the same team the great Peter Forsberg played for, if I remember correctly). He’s 27 years old and a former 7th rounder from nine years ago. Financial terms weren’t disclosed, but I feel confident that given his pedigree we can estimate the deal at somewhere between $300 and a billion.

Being a Sox fan…I like the thought of a Blackhawk with a name that similar to “Comiskey.”

Go Hawks.