Thanks, Marian: Looking Ahead to the 2011-2012 Cap Situation

  Uh, yeah... so about that contract... via a.espncdn.com

Edit: It was brought to my attention that Huet's cap hit was not included in the $11.389MM number. I thus changed it up significantly to reflect that.

As we are all well aware of by now, Richard Bloch's rejection of Ilya Kovalchuk's eon long deal with the New Jersey Devils has league wide ramifications. The Hawks and their front loaded deal with one Marian Hossa are specifically coming under scrutiny due to the upholding of the NHL's rejection of Kovy's contract, and this got me to thinking...

With the vast majority of Hawks fans firmly entrenched in the still on-going (albeit decelerating) offseason capocalypse, what happens if the NHL chooses to play hardball and negate contracts like Hossa's? The current CBA does, believe it or not, allow the NHL to do such a thing, and with Mr. Bloch all but guaranteeing that some seriously huge decisions will be made eventually in regards to deals that circumvent the cap, I'm beginning to think toward yet another offseason of potential cap craziness next season. Thus, to the drawing board!

Per CapGeek.com, the Hawks are currently slated to have $11,389,497 of cap space going into next off season. This, of course, is including the expiring contracts of Seabrook, Brouwer, Kopecky, Turco, etc, but does not count the $5.625 million cap hit represented by Cristobal Huet. Once Huet is sent off to Rockford or loaned to a club across the pond, that the total amount of cap space drops to a comfortable $17,014,497. Assuming, as many of us have, that Seabs re-ups for a cap hit of approximately $5MM a year ($1.5 more than his current deal), that number drops to a little over $15 million. But what if the league chooses to give the proverbial finger to the Hossa deal and similar contracts like Bloch and the NHL seem to be suggesting they might? Well, the short answer is that shit gets rather fuzzy for Stan Bowman yet again.

For purposes of clarity and pure speculation, we'll say that the Hossa deal gets nixed and Stan works out a new deal with Panda which cuts off the cheap years at the end and makes it decline less sharply. If Panda gets paid $7.9 through 2016 and $4.0 in 2016-2017 like the current deal dictates, but the 2017-2018 season is restructured and gets bumped up to something along the lines of $2.5 million, we're now sitting at a total $53.9 over the next 8 years and a cap hit of $6,737,000 for Hoss. That's a raise in the cap hit of $1.4625 million, and the total cap space number now drops to just about $13.5 million. Of course, there is no guarantee that league would make such a rash and hardline move to cap-circumventing deals, but operating under the idea that the CBA allows such action, we'll take the puck and skate with it. The core would thus stay intact, and Stan would still have a hefty amount to work with. Unfortunately, the sheer number of talented players moving into their prime with expiring contracts and the financial struggles of the ownership could complicate things once again.

As of right now, excluding Seabiscuit, the Hawks have 10 players with expiring NHL contracts heading into next offseason. Each of these is significant in their own way, but Troy Brouwer, Viktor Stalberg, Tomas Kopecky and Jordan Hendry stick out the most. It is highly likely that Stan will let Kopecky walk, especially due to the amount of prospective third and fourth line forwards the Hawks currently have in development. Panda will no longer have his Slovakian bitch, but he'll live.

Brouwer and Stalberg will both become RFAs, but both of their prospective contracts depend greatly on their performance as top 6 forwards this season. The possibility of both Troy and EKTORP (yes, I'm trying to start this one up) approaching the 30 goal mark next season is certainly there, especially because of the talent and experience around them, and if both have that sort of success we can logically expect significant pay raises. Stan has been diligently acquiring sharpshooters as well as big bodies through trades and the draft, and coupled with the amount of talent that Dale Tallon drafted, such as Kyle Beach and Marcus Kruger, losing both Brouwer and Stalberg might not be terrible. But in the case of success, and with the money there, it would be pointless to not resign at least one of the two. So, in this scenario, say Stan resigns both; Brouwer for a cap hit of $3.5 million and Stalberg for a hit of $3.00. That's raises of $2.475 and $2.15, respectively. The cap space number now drops to about $8.8 million with 13 players under contract.

The primary focus now shifts to defense and goaltending. Hendry will be playing a much greater role as the go to guy on the third defensive pairing this season, and if he succeeds he'll probably deserve a slight pay raise. The organization seems to adore the guy, as do the players, so Hendry resigning a longer term deal for a hit around $800k isn't out of the question. Odds are high that Nick Boynton hangs up the skates following this season, so the brass will likely look towards one of the younger dudes in the system to give Hendry a new partner. If Hendry's number bounces up about $200-$300k and of the youngsters who has a deal somewhere near $1.0 million comes in, we're now looking at about $7.5 million in cap space (Note: I'm including John Scott as the 7th defensive man throughout all of this). Goaltending is where everything gets weird. Speculating on how Corey Crawford will perform at backup or whether Marty Turco will enjoy Chicago and have enough success this next season is more pointless than this article, but we can reasonably expect that the organization will not want to spend much more than $3.0 million on both a starting and backup netminder. Operating under that assumption, the cap space amount drops to roughly $4.5 million, and 17 players would be under contract.

So, with 5 more forward spots to fill and a handful of cheaper entry level contracts of talented young players lying around in Rockford and Europe, the situation next offseason seems to be at least slightly better than this year's. As mentioned previously, the scrubbing of the Hossa deal is no guarantee, but this gives a simple idea of how things might play if the unexpected occurs. Things could get much more complicated in the case of bonuses, but with the entry level contracts of Tazer and Kane now gone, the possibility of such an astronomical bonus carry over becomes much less likely. Additionally, Patrick Sharp's deal is set to expire the following season, and the front office will have a huge decision to make when that rolls around. Conserving money for Sharp isn't out of the question, but for now I'm not worrying so much about that. One can only look so far into the future. I would caution against breathing easy, since this is of course the NHL hard cap we're talking about, but you won't have to lose anymore sleep while thinking of the significant championship contributors now suiting up for the fucking Atlanta Thrashers.