Jim Neveau, PIB Co-conspirator
Author’s Note: Several changes have taken place within this text. The author incorrectly believed that healthy scratches did not count against the salary cap (they do), and therefore his original roster only had 20 players. The new roster will have 21 players on it, and has the potential to be 22 if the Niemi arbitration case gives him a cheaper than anticipated salary.
Thank you for all of the reader feedback on this piece.
With all of the roster hemorrhaging that has occurred during the 2010 off-season, many Blackhawks fans are going to have to get to know quite a few new faces this season. Players like Jake Dowell, Bryan Bickell, and Jack Skille are all going to get serious shots at making the Opening Day roster for the Hawks, and with their cheap cap hits and youthful enthusiasm, they will provide a cheap spark to a team in desperate need of good news.
It has been an eventful off-season in the roster move category for Stan Bowman, but there is still one loose end that needs to be tied up: the Antti Niemi situation. With the Finnish goaltender’s arbitration hearing scheduled for this coming Thursday, the challenge of getting him signed to a new contract has been a hot button issue for Hawks fans and team observers. If the team were to lose Mr. Niemi, most fans would likely hurtle over a precipice of despair over the continued loss of players they know. If they are able to keep him, it would serve as a morphine drip for fans, easing the pain of losing so many players.
The question of how they would keep Niemi is a complicated one. Chicago currently is $403,000 over the salary cap, and they only have 17 players under contract at this moment. That means that, in addition to Niemi, the Hawks need to get at least one more forward and one more defenseman under contract. Doing all of this while shedding enough salary to make it under the $59.4 million salary cap is going to be a challenge for Stan Bowman, but using Cap Geek’s handy dandy salary cap calculator, it is possible to get a couple more players under contract AND keep Niemi in the fold.
Goaltending
The first step in keeping Niemi will be to get rid of the contract of Cristobal Huet. It is a $5.625 million millstone around the necks of the Blackhawks, and sending him down to Rockford would give the team a great deal of cap space to use to bring back their Cup winning goalie. The team could also move him to Europe instead of burying him in the minors, but needless to say, getting rid of Huet holds the key to any of the rest of these moves being possible.
Since we just got rid of Huet, we will need a back-up goalie to have on the roster behind Niemi. While Hannu Toivonen wouldn’t be a bad option at the back-up goalie slot, the Hawks are likely leaning toward bringing long-time farmhand Corey Crawford into the fold instead. His $800,000 cap hit is not hideous for a back-up keeper, and he is definitely more NHL ready than Toivonen.
Defense
Currently on Cap Geek, John Scott is listed on the blue line for the Blackhawks. While his $512,000 cap hit would be perfect for Chicago’s purposes, he isn’t who we had in mind for the Hawks’ roster. Instead, in our simulation we have Jordan Hendry re-signed for a cap hit around $900,000 (don’t be surprised if it ends up being lower than this), and we put Ivan Vishnevskiy in Scott’s place. This move serves two purposes:
1. It gives the Hawks a solid puck mover on their third line, something that most teams don’t have the luxury of possessing.
2. By bringing in his $822,000 cap hit, Chicago will give themselves a little bit of flexibility if they encounter any injuries to some of the cheaper players they would have on the roster. They could ship Vishnevskiy down to the minors and bring Scott up, saving about $300,000 off the cap.
With Vishnevskiy and Hendry in the fold, the defensive corps will look something like this:
Line 1: Duncan Keith – Brent Seabrook
Line 2: Brian Campbell – Niklas Hjalmarsson
Line 3: Jordan Hendry – Ivan Vishnevskiy
Offense
Another difference of opinion that we have with Cap Geek is the presence of Viktor Stalberg on the roster. Yes, he has been a highly touted prospect for some time, and he may very well win a job coming out of training camp, but there is one key element working against him: his $850,000 base salary and $65,000 bonus that he would be due. Neither one of these numbers look good for a guy who would likely be a third or fourth line winger for the Hawks, so they probably will send him down to the minors to marinate a little bit longer.
Taking Stalberg off the roster would leave the Hawks with 10 forwards. This number will likely fall to nine, as the Hawks would probably trade Tomas Kopecky in order to fit in Niemi’s salary, so they would need to select three more players out of their minor league system to flesh out the roster. For the sake of this simulation, the three players we have chosen for the Hawks are Igor Makarov, Rob Klinkhammer, and Marcus Kruger.
All three players recently signed low cap-hit contracts with the Blackhawks, and the common belief is that they did this in order to maximize their chances of playing in the NHL this season. They are all expected to have excellent chances of making the roster, and in our minds, they will be the players chosen not only because of their potential to help out the fourth line, but those cap hits will be very attractive as well.
In this scenario, here is how PIB sees the lines breaking down:
Line 1: Troy Brouwer – Jonathan Toews – Patrick Kane
Line 2: Jack Skille – Patrick Sharp – Marian Hossa
Line 3: Bryan Bickell – Dave Bolland – Marcus Kruger
Line 4: Rob Klinkhammer – Jake Dowell – Igor Makarov
With these salaries lined up, the Hawks would be able to carry a 21st player on the roster, and for the sake of this simulation, this player would be center Jeff Taffe, who carries a $550,000 cap hit.
And the Final Cap Figures Are………
With the rosters as we have set them up here, the Blackhawks will have approximately$56, 534,924 worth of cap hit with 20 players signed. If no other moves are made, that leaves them with $3,167,576 worth of cap space with which to sign Antti Niemi. It may not be enough to do the job in terms of getting Niemi signed to a longer term deal, but it might be enough to convince him to sign a one year contract with the Blackhawks.
If for whatever reason the Hawks feel like they would need a little bit more money to sign him, they could also bring up Shawn Lalonde instead of Ivan Vishnevskiy, saving them nearly $300,000. That savings would give Niemi a very respectable $3.4 million cap hit, and would likely be enough to bring him into the fold long term.
Of course, this could all be for naught, as the arbitrator might decide that Niemi only has earned a contract of around $2.8 million. In that case, the Hawks could possibly maneuver the roster to be able to carry a 22nd player (likely another defenseman like John Scott), or a higher cost 21st player (like Stalberg or Jeremy Morin). It is also feasible that a $2.8 million contract could enable the Hawks to keep Tomas Kopecky, albeit only if they bring up a cheaper player like Evan Brophey to replace Marcus Kruger.
If this exercise has taught us anything, it is that the process of keeping Niemi will be a difficult trick for Stan Bowman to perform, but it is doable if he makes certain roster decisions. Keeping Antti will be a tight squeeze no matter how you slice it, but with the right moves, and a little bit of cap creativity, the probability of the Finnish Fortress patrolling the crease for Chicago is a little more likely than some would have you believe.
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Tags: antti niemi, Brent Seabrook, Brian Campbell, Bryan Bickell, Chicago Blackhawks, corey crawford, Cristobal Huet, Dave Bolland, Duncan Keith, Evan Brophey, Hannu Toivonen, Igor Makarov, Ivan Vishnevskiy, Jack Skille, Jake Dowell, John Scott, Jonathan Toews, Jordan Hendry, marian hossa, niklas hjalmarsson, Patrick Kane, Patrick Sharp, shawn lalonde, stan bowman, Tomas Kopecky, Troy Brouwer, Viktor Stalberg
