I hate looking back, but bored with the 2 day hockey layoff and missing the Hawks,I was caught in a moment wondering what that team would have looked like this past year had they not had to eat the bonus cap space from Kane and Toews. People forget how having a 20/21 kid scoring in the top 10 and a 21/22 year old winning the Conn Smythe award affected the team cap-wise. These are not things a GM can effectively plan for and in the end are Champagne problems (literally in Toews' case)
But if Kane scores a four less points or the CS goes to different worthy Hawk (Keith, Buff, Sharp, Kane (winning goal)) we have a completely different off-season. The hawks would have at least $3.5m more to work plus the Hammer offer-sheet probably never happens.
I see:
Hammer 3 yrs. @$2.75m (save 750k)
Niemi 2 yrs @2.4m (lose 1.1m vs Turco)
Ladd 1-yr @2.35m ( lose ~1.5m vs replacement )
Buff and Versteeg traded but Versteeg gets better value.
The result is the hawks having ~$2m more to play with to fill out the roster while keeping Ladd.
Maybe I'm nitpicking, but if the CS went to Kane instead of Toews... wouldn't the same bonus be applied? Both were on ELCs and both were selected in the top 3 of their respective draft year.
If we had the 4 mil extra in cap space, we would've kept Ladd and Niemi and that's probably the only difference IMO. Maybe Hjalmarsson isn't offer-sheeted (who's to say though?) and we save an additional mil or so and kept Reasoner.
brouwer on the top line? yea, no thanks. Bickell would be there 10 times out of 10 judging by what we saw from brouwer this season.
Yeah but judging by the past 3 seasons, he's been there quite a bit and has found some relative success there. It's not like Q wouldn't juggle them up every other game anyways. Imagine someone else there, if you will.
I hate looking back, but bored with the 2 day hockey layoff and missing the Hawks,I was caught in a moment wondering what that team would have looked like this past year had they not had to eat the bonus cap space from Kane and Toews. People forget how having a 20/21 kid scoring in the top 10 and a 21/22 year old winning the Conn Smythe award affected the team cap-wise. These are not things a GM can effectively plan for and in the end are Champagne problems (literally in Toews' case)
But if Kane scores a four less points or the CS goes to different worthy Hawk (Keith, Buff, Sharp, Kane (winning goal)) we have a completely different off-season. The hawks would have at least $3.5m more to work plus the Hammer offer-sheet probably never happens.
I see:
Hammer 3 yrs. @$2.75m (save 750k)
Niemi 2 yrs @2.4m (lose 1.1m vs Turco)
Ladd 1-yr @2.35m ( lose ~1.5m vs replacement )
Buff and Versteeg traded but Versteeg gets better value.
The result is the hawks having ~$2m more to play with to fill out the roster while keeping Ladd.
Anyone care to think about what could have been?
Hammer still would be 3.5 ,, his agent wanted to test the offer sheet waters so he would still do that
I would rather have Crawford but Niemi wouldn't have signed for that. (He turned down Hawks 3 yr / 2.6 mil cap hit deal). His arbitration salary would be what he would have had + he would be UFA this summer if it had happened
If not for bonus hits I think Ladd , Niemi and Burish would have been around this year. Still would have lost Buff/Steeger and rest
Would rather still have the exact same team that won the cup, but that's not possible in the NHL today.
At the end of the day, having Versteeg/Ladd/Buff shipped out brought us Morin, made the trade for Frolik a necessity, got us Salak, and gave us a few good picks #24 (K.Hayes), #54 (J.Holl) in 2010 and #36 this year.
Maybe I'm nitpicking, but if the CS went to Kane instead of Toews... wouldn't the same bonus be applied? Both were on ELCs and both were selected in the top 3 of their respective draft year.
I don't know how the vote for Conn Smythe went. Do they even release that? I don't think Kane would have won otherwise. To me, Byfuglien or Bolland should have won it, with Toews and Sharp as 3rd or 4th one way or another.
Guys, not all bonus clauses are the same for all players. Kane, as the first player drafted, likely had easier bonuses to obtain. The CS is almost impossible to obtain.
We don't know what the contracts exactly contain but it's pretty clear that Kane would have maxed out his bonuses no matter what: he qualified for many "B" bonuses and if his contract was anything like Malkin's, just a single one would have been enough to max him out.
Toews' situation is a little less cut-and-dry because of his draft status but he also was top-five in Selke voting and there's a significant chance that this would have maxed out his "B" bonuses as well.
We don't know what the contracts exactly contain but it's pretty clear that Kane would have maxed out his bonuses no matter what: he qualified for many "B" bonuses and if his contract was anything like Malkin's, just a single one would have been enough to max him out.
Toews' situation is a little less cut-and-dry because of his draft status but he also was top-five in Selke voting and there's a significant chance that this would have maxed out his "B" bonuses as well.
I thought Kane got a $2m bonus for being top-10 in scoring (or either goals or assists.) I concede that may not be accurate.
