An interesting question posed by Drew Remenda

Great piece, Mr. Plank.

Nor would I ever expect Doug Wilson to get himself in the Hawks’ position with the offer sheet issues Tallon got into, which was a huge catalyst for the changes that needed to happen in Chicago. Overpaying your role players like Bolland, Versteeg, Barker, etc. really soaks up your cap. Of course the Campbell and Huet signings are huge contributors too.

Point being, I don’t think Chicago’s situation was so much an “all or nothing” situation as it was a “well, let’s do what we can now while we can after a couple big screw-ups” one. I think it’s all about taking calculated risks and I do also prefer Wilson’s way of maintaining a competitive team but do I mind him making a bold, future-sacrificing move to aggressively go at a Cup? Not a bit.

Chicago Blackhawks and now starting to remind me of the Tampa Bay Lightning

Altho FTF’s motto is Where Selling Your Soul Is The Likely Solution and I’ve joked around after the Chicago situation that if given the option, would do the same, there is just too much risk that way than growing a team steadily the Sharks way. Yes it seems our chance is just right there out of reach each time, but as we always say “next season”. So this next one is ours!

Consider our Team, Built to Last lost to the Stacked team, I think we should Build a team That is just better.

So Far, the Sharks have not done a whole lot to get me excited about the New Season. On paper, we have taken a step back. is our window over… and do we really have anything to show for it?

Reading this piece reminds me…. that, Chicago fans have something that I would Kill for. a T-Shirt or Hat that reads, World Champions…. imagine that. 201? WORLD CHAMPIONS SAN JOSE SHARKS…. Sounds Good.

“the Stanley Cup is the most difficult championship to win in all of sports”

I’ve seen this mentioned quite a few times now and I must admit I don’t understand what makes the Stanley Cup championship more difficult to win than other sports. Would someone care to explain?

This kind of talk puts things into a realistic perspective.

I have been a fan of hockey for years, but never of a particular team. After observing the Sharks’ game for the last few years (especially against Detroit in the recent playoffs), I have been impressed.

Hockey is a tough sport. Because of that, most teams come-and-go in regards to being considered elite teams. The Sharks have been consistent and very exciting to watch due to the integrity of their management and staff.

Give players a good home, they will give you a good result.

Fully agree with you Plank. I’m naturally risk averse, so I’d build for the long term. Chances to win the Cup are better this way, even if only Detroit manages to do it well in the league.

I also think that the talks of Blackhawks ceasing to be a contender are not right. When they still have Toews, Kane, Keith, Seabrook, Campbell, Hammer, Sharp (?), and damn it, but a good goalie in Turco – they’ll still contend next season and probably beyond. I still think they’re the favorites in the West, even despite losing some role players.

Their defense is still the best in the West, and Toews and Kane will not disappear in playoffs. The road to SCF in the West still likes through them.

I dunno. I’d have been right there with you a few years ago. I mean, the Sharks are always contenders, and there’s always the belief that this will be the year they finally break through. It’s nice that we’re always able to believe that…but man, it’s really getting old being so good and not making it to the promised land. I think, at this point, I might be inclined (were we in the position to do so, which we are not) to take the chicago route for one good, last, hard charge at the Stanley Cup…future be damned.

Of course, in the Sharks’ case, they don’t have young, cheap Toews, Kanes, or Sharps coming up to be awesome and cheap. Mostly because we keep trading away our first round picks to supplement the current roster (so, in a way, we are continuously mortgaging our future to try and win now with this group…just not in the extreme sense). So, the Sharks aren’t even in a position to consider the chicago approach to winning a cup. But it is interesting to think about.

Personally, I wouldn’t want to suffer through 2 decades of a really shitty product to get the necessary draft picks to build a contender through young, cheap contracts like Chicago did. But god damn I really want the Sharks to finally win a Cup. I really don’t care how it gets done…I just want it done.

It goes without saying that it would be great to win a Cup, but it would be a difficult trade off for me. Aside from potentially turning a champtionship team into one just hoping to make the playoffs, I would also hate to see so many players go at once. We watch them, read about them, and discuss them on a daily basis during the season, and almost as often during the Summer. Given all that it’s hard not to become too invested in specific players, even the lower lines and bottom pairings.

As ZeroIndulgence mentioned above, we don’t have the same roster setup that Chicago did, so it’s hard to compare, but it would be pretty crappy to watch the likes of Clowe, Seto, Murray, and a handful of others all leave the team at the same time.

Anyone who endured the 70 loss season and is still bleeding Teal is not going to be scared off by the team being imploded.

Let’s not forget, this team has undergone SEVERAL face-lifts. A lot of players left in the wake of the player revolt against Kevin Constantine, and those were big time fan favorites, and that happened VERY EARLY in team history, when fans were still getting used to hockey in the Bay Area. And you know what, the Tank REMAINED one of the loudest places to play.

We traded Owen Nolan, had big time veterans leave, brought in a lot of young kids and new names to what had been a consistent playoff team in what appeared to be a rebuild. What happened? We made it to the WCF.

Sharks fans have basically already shown they are a loyal bunch, and will turn out no matter who plays. We’ve shown we can endure AWFUL seasons. This franchise is 20 years old now. It’s not just some new fad for a fickle Bay Area crowd. This team is woven into the local landscape. We’re fairly savvy hockey fans too. And, anyone who has been a fan of the 49ers, Raiders or A’s understands the term “rebuild.”

Would I trade a team for a Cup? In a heartbeat.

The “choker” label, deserved or not, is hard to deal with. I’ve stated on many occasions I miss the underdog days. It’s easy to root for an underdog. And it might do the team some good to be underdogs again. Unrealized potential remains hard to root for. We still root for them because we bleed Teal. But every year gone numbs that rabid, baseless enthusiasm that makes it so great to be a hockey fan by just the tiniest bit. A fresh start might be just the thing for an increasingly jaded fanbase.

We pretty much blow up the bottom lines on the team every season when we lose. What difference does it make if we were to win?

Look at how many guys were given the boot or not resigned after 08-09

Grier
Goc
Plihal
Kaspar
Boucher
Semenov
Lemieux
Moen

We have kept the same top two lines fairly consistent. The bottom two and the D? a whole different story.

This.

If we were guaranteed the Cup, I’d gladly put myself through what Chicago fans are going through right now.

But there aren’t any guarantees in sports (other than the Cubs not winning the World Series), so I’d rather have the greatest number of chances as a contender. Yeah, it might not work, but I believe that you have a greater overall chance of winning than if you stacked the deck for one year.

Plus, just think of how satisfying it would be to win the Cup next year, or the year after that. Not only would we have the Cup after years of enduring the “choker” label, but we’d still have most of the same players on the team. We could celebrate them the next season, cheer them on as the banner is raised to the rafters. We wouldn’t root against them, or wonder which ones were going to leave San Jose, but rather celebrate that we have another chance to win another Cup the next season.

Haven’t we already thrown the dice and put ourselves in Cap Hell?

We just showed the door to our netminder of 10 years, and the most important player to this franchise before the arrival of Joe Thornton.

In all likelihood, Ryane Clowe can’t remain in Teal for much longer if we (a) want improved D (b) want to keep Logan Couture and Jamie McGinn.

We have $21M invested in HTML. We saw how that shook out when it came to keeping Nabby. Might we have to say goodbye to someone else as we start tying up money in Setoguchi, Couture and McGinn? Will Douglas Murray be a victim? Will solid contributors with great stories like Jed Ortmeyer also be shown the door?

We don’t have it as extreme as Chicago, but we’ve had our fair share of sacrifices. We also don’t have the Cup to show for it.

If the argument is that you don’t guarantee a Cup with ridiculous Cap structures, we’ve also learned you don’t guarantee it with a conservative approach. Each obviously has its merits. Chicago can tell you about high risk high reward. Detroit can tell you about slow and steady.

Until we have a Cup, it’s hard for us to say which is better. I’m unopposed to trying the high risk method because it doesn’t seem like it can be any worse… unless you offer a Brian Campbell contract that will saddle your team for years to come. That’s the only spot where I think the high risk model fails. Otherwise, I think you roll with the off-season punches and expect a few more Manny Malhotra style departures: you pay a guy less than he’s worth and are powerless to stop him from taking a bloated offer elsewhere.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this quandary lately, mostly because of the distinct possibility that we see Crankshaft moved before next season – particularly if Mitchell to San Jose becomes a reality. It’s a huge bummer when you become emotionally attached to a player, just to see them sent packing. Warriors fans such as myself experienced a particularly bad example of this after the We Believe run. It’s a lot easier to become angry with the management for moving a beloved player than it is to reason out why they did it, at least initially. It helps when a painful personnel change pays dividends immediately, such as the Heatley trade. I think Heatley’s hat trick during the home opener (aside from game 1 vs. Detroit and game 5 vs. Colorado this past postseason, still the most satisfying game I’ve ever been to) put nearly all doubters at ease.

I’ve read through your responses and they’re very interesting. Living in Chicago, I am also a Cubs fan, so I most certainly understand the suffering of a fanbase that has had it’s collective heart broken many times.

I agree with those who have said that the Hawks and Sharks are an apples-to-oranges comparison in terms of salary structure, and that makes it a bit difficult to compare situations. That said, while I wouldn’t go all-out in mercenary mode to win it all with the current CBA, it’s definitely worth it to be aggressive, especially if you’ve got some very talented young players still playing on entry-level contracts. You just have to make sure to draft and scout well, along with getting as much as you can when losing non-core players. And, who knows, maybe future CBAs will add provisions to soften the cap and allow teams to retain the young talent they drafted.

I’m really enjoying watching the talent on the Blackhawks and, with all due respect to the recently departed players, I will continue to enjoy watching that young talent for years to come. They’ve kept their fantastic core while amassing a stockpile of draft picks and prospects to hopefully keep the well of cheap, young talent flowing for years to come. That’s the best they can honestly hope for in a hard-cap world.

Yes, the Blackhawks will take a step or two back next season, but they will still be very fun to watch. I’ve gotten to enjoy an awesome Cup run, and now I can enjoy the challenge of trying to win one again with a chip on our shoulders and some new players to watch grow into their roles. Additionally, I can enjoy watching the playoffs now without having the monkey on my team’s back—if they lose, it’s not the end of the world.

I want a team that can compete consistently for a number of years, no one that is one and done.

The Hawks blew their cap wad this past season and it worked, but that doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed to work every time. I’d rather not mortgage a team’s future on a possible championship win now. Nothing is that certain.

This is a great thread, and it’s a nice break from the “FML WE JUST LET NIEMI GO AWAY WHOZ THIS TURDCO GUY?” discussions I’ve heard at work for the past few weeks. Let me say just this:

The Hawks did have to sacrifice quite a bit to get the cup, and some well-loved players had to head to hockey “havens” like Florida and Atlanta. They will all be missed. The thing that isn’t missed is the fact that Stan Bowman has done very well with the situation he was handed. He got very good returns on some players that every GM in the universe knew we were going to have to move. He restocked the farm system (shit, we had 5 2nd round picks this draft), and got some promising young players to replace what was lost (Morin, Stahlberg, Leddy). I think the Hawks take a step back this year (still win the central. Detroit is old, STL is young, Nashville is meh, and the BJ’s blow), but take a few leaps forward in ’11 or ’12.

To summarize: Die Gary Betteman, Die.

I hope to get into some decent dialogue here even though I’m a diehard fan of the dreaded team that knocked your guys out of the WCF.

The big question is will the fans understand?

Those of us longtime fans will understand since arguably most of us understand at least on the fringe what had to be done with the cap AND how this team is constructed. The newer fans or lest I say bandwagon fans will be less forgiving but with that is less understanding.

Would you support a management who puts together a team that wins you a Cup, knowing within weeks of that joyous day the team is going to be blown up?

Again, those of us around a long time still support the team since we’ve known for over one calendar year this was going to happen. We also know there were some mistakes made in the front office that were NOT part of any plan that significantly contributed to the cap issue.

Would you proudly still buy the tickets, the jerseys, stand on the parade route for hours knowing that half of the guys you are cheering for now will be gone and you will be cheering against them the next season?

Yes, in fact I re-upped my ST’s to the tune of $11k for 2 full season tix. I’ve bought a ton of champion stuff and sweated my ass off downtown with a million+ others on the 11th. I personally waited 39 years – 22 days just to have the chance to see them win it. (lost game 7 May 18th, 1971 at the Stadium on the infamous Jacques Lemaire “fog goal”) Yes, it was 49 years overall but it was only 10 less years they even were in position to win.

In other words would you make the deal with the cap devil to win you a Cup knowing that it may be some time before you can do it again?

Don’t know if I’d call it the cap devil since IMHO it was NOT a devine PLAN to get the team to the promised land this way. I’ll explain in a minute.

It took the Chicago Blackhawks 49 years to win the 4th Stanley Cup in franchise history. How long will it take for them to do it again?

It’ll take between 1-3 years for them to win again, depending on how these younger kids work into coach Q’s system plus minimal injuries of course and lastly if no other team (like yours for instance) turns into a juggernaut.

So with all that here’s the explanation of a long-time die-hard: The ‘Hawks former GM, Dale Tallon knew how to get talent on the team. It took him a few years but he made some good guesses. And I’m not talking about guys like Patrick Kane. He fell into our laps since we SUCKED for several seasons leading into 2007-2008. Sucking for so long also forced Dale’s hand to overpay some guys, say like Brent Sopel.

Dale went against everyone in the ’Hawks organization in order to draft Jonathon Toews with the #3 overall in 2006. He took next to nothing and traded it for Patrick Sharp. He also turned nothing into Kris Versteeg. He daringly traded talented – but oft injured – Tuomo Ruutu for Andrew Ladd.

Dale also drafted Niklas Hjalmarrson (how bad did Willie want him?!), Troy Brouwer and Dave Bolland (ask Jumbo Joe about the “rat”). He also found Antti Niemi. Sure he overpaid for Brian Campbell but I’ll say the ‘Hawks were not the same in that Nashville series without him. Did he have to cost $7.1M a year? Perhaps not but I count that as one of Dale’s bigger business mistakes. This started a trend that lead to his dismissal.

So that gets me to the business side. Dale didn’t manage the finances well. He knew talent a bit more than other GM’s but did NOT manage the money well. We all know Huet’s deal is an albatross and the ‘Hawks are prepared to eat 100% of it. Campbell’s deal should have been structured like Hossa’s or Keith’s. Byfuglien and Bolland were paid too much given their resume’s at that time.

Which now brings me to the qualifying offer fiasco of June, 2009. Cam Barker, Kris Versteeg and 3 other players were NOT given their QO’s in time. They were going to be FA’s July, 1, 2009. Dale had to OVERPAY IMO approximately $5M for those 5 players combined so they didn’t lose them on July 1st. About half of that money went to Kris Versteeg. Four of those 5 players are now gone.

Lastly, and this wasn’t planned necessarily but careless none the less is the carry-over bonuses for this season. Kane and Toews bonuses had to be applied for 2010-11 or else they would have had to move $4-5M of salary for last year.

All of this was under Dale’s watch. That’s why he’s gone. He got a lot of great guys but missed the boat on some of these deals money-wise. What Stan is doing is trying to fix the mess without gutting the team. The ‘Hawks have returning their top-10 players, 6 on offence, 4 on defence. So many here will say, "Niemi wasn’t your top-10?"

I say its arguable however the Blackhawks are built on TEAM defence. You guys saw that first hand. Toews, Hossa, Bolland, Sharp….all defencive guys right? AND they’re all excellent forwards. Is there a better defencemen pair in the NHL than Keith and Seabrook? Now throw in the highly mobile Campbell (I love how you boo him in the shark tank) and the up-and-coming Hjalmarrson. Is there a top-4 defence in the NHL better than ours? Probably not. Therefore the Blackhawks can afford to have a less-than-stellar goalie. That is why Niemi was expendable. Turns out the ‘Hawks got Turco, Crawford and a $650k youngster for the same price as Niemi’s $2.75M arbitration award.

The bottom line was this wasn’t a grand plan by the front office. IMO there was a compounding issue – highlighted by the QO fiasco of June, 2009 – that put the team in cap danger. There was not an intent of a “go for it all once and then dismantle”. The dismantling comment I hear all the time is most disturbing. How many teams that win a championship that EVERYONE else knows that the team has to shed players does so with not giving up ONE single guy of their top-10.

Sure some stars aligned. The ‘Hawks were healthy at the time of the season they needed to be. Their system is outstanding under Q’s direction and they have a ton of players in the pipeline.

If keeping: TOEWS, HOSSA, SHARP, KANE, BOLLAND, BROUWER, KEITH, SEABROOK, CAMPBELL & HJALMARRSON is called dismantling, then so be it.