Threat Level For Losing Debrincat To Free Agency And The Rest Of The Blackhawks August Mailbag

The season is almost here. Like seriously. The first preseason game is less than one month away. The dust has settle. The roster looks pretty complete. It’s time to clean up any lingering questions you all might have heading into camp. Let’s get after it

We will go in reverse order here

1) According to Scott Powers, Perlini is going to sign. I assume that’ll be a one year deal that makes him arbitration eligible next summer. Perlini looks how you want your wingers to look. He’s big, fast, strong, and he has a really good shot. The problem is that he looks better getting off the bus than he does getting on the ice. He’s worth having on the roster and if he ever puts it all together mentally where he brings it every night then poof…the Blackhawks have themselves a top six caliber wing for pretty cheap. Prove it year for Perlini

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2) Goalie thoughts…I am not a big Lehner guy. I like the signing, but I am really glad they didn’t commit to him long term. He had an awesome year playing behind a Barry Trotz team. Lots of goalies have done that. Trotz’s system is so air tight that teams almost NEVER get quality shots from high danger areas. Shots from the perimeter, Lehner was of the best in the league and rode those numbers to being a Vezina finalist. Shots from the slot…he wasn’t so great. Towards the bottom of the league. The Hawks…well recently they’ve given up a SHIT ton of inner slot chances and chances off the rush. That won’t be a great recipe for Lehner. Lehner might be the best backup in the league this year, but if Crawford is healthy then Lehner will most likely be that…the backup. I would guess that Lehner gets 35 starts. Which is a lot for a backup, but Crawford will still be the #1 when the Blackhawks need a W or if they make the playoffs.

3) The Lineup…here is the frame work for it right now

OPEN LW–Toews–Kane

Debrincat–Strome–OPEN RW

Saad–OPEN Center–Shaw

Smith–Carpenter–OPEN

What it looks like to me right now is an open competition for one spot on every line. Sure, Shaw and Saad could slide up into the top 6, but if you top 9 looks the way I have constructed with Saad and Shaw on the 3rd line well you’ve suddenly got a lot of depth and balance. The competition to fill out those spots are going to be intense and fun to watch this September. You’ve got a group of guys vying for those various roles

Kirby Dach, David Kampf, Drake Caggiula, Alex Nylander, Dylan Sikura, Dominik Kubalik, and Brendan Perlini

Perlini(when he signs) Kampf and Caggiula will be on the team in some way, shape, or form. Caggiula could be slotted on literally any of the four lines. Kampf is a bottom 6 guy with positional versatility. The other guys…we’ll see. If Dach wins a spot in camp and slides into that 3C role on opening night that would probably be a good thing for the Blackhawks, or he could be off the team entirely and back to Saskatoon. If the Hawks keep 13 forwards, the others will be battling it out for those 3 remaining open roster spots. I really couldn’t handicap it at this point. It’s nice to have some perceived depth for a change though.

In a normal situation…I wouldn’t be that nervous. The Blackhawks have $11M in goalies coming off the books, Gustafsson will be gone, the cap will go up, and Maatta will absolutely be bought out(saves $3.4M against the cap), and if it comes to it the Blackhawks can probably find a trade partner for Saad and Murphy because they’re solid to good NHL players still in their primes at decent cap hits. It won’t be as hard to trade those two as it was to trade Anisimov or Bickell, etc. Taking ALL of that in account, the Blackhawks should be able to find a way to sign Debrincat and Strome and absorb their combined $12-13M cap hits.

However…Stan Bowman

You just can’t rule out a situation where he trades Debrincat because the negotiations aren’t going well and he fears an offersheet. He is definitely watching the Marner and other RFA hold-out situations very carefully this summer.

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It doesn’t look like it on paper. Defense is played by more than just defensemen and I think having a better forward group who should be able to both help defend and also retain possession a little better this year will help, but this group doesn’t look like the St Louis Blues, that is for sure. They have a bunch of solid options that don’t seem to fit together that well. Gustafsson will play with Keith, most likely, but Gust is better suited to play 3rd pair minutes. I like the idea of De Haan with Murphy as a shut down pairing, but then what do you do with Maatta and Seabrook because they definitely can’t play together. It’s a tough puzzle to fit together. There’s seemingly a log jam and no natural solution.

I hope Boqvist is so electric in training camp that it makes Gustafsson expendible. Gustafsson will NOT be on the team next year because his contract will be up and the Hawks need to sign Debrincat, Strome, and two goalies. There won’t be a budget for Gustafsson. I want Boqvist to force their hand now be making it obvious that he can replace what Gustafsson brings offensively. Save a little money, pick up an asset for Gustafsson, and roll with Boqvist on opening night.

I don’t think that will happen though. Boqvist will definitely play in the NHL at some point this year, if healthy, but my guess is that he plays the majority of the season in Rockford even if he’s one of the best 6 defensemen on the roster

I don’t know the answer to that question. Jokiharju looks like the real deal to me. Hopefully that trade isn’t a disaster and Nylander becomes a valuable top 6 winger, but how things ended here for Henri was odd. He got off to a great start and then seemingly regressed a little(not THAT much though) under Colliton until he was shipped away for the balance of the season. One of the things Stan said in Colliton’s introductory press conference was that he was great at communicating with young players…we didn’t see that with Henri and now he’s gone. Perhaps it was as simple as Boqvist and Mitchell were better prospects than him, but I would guess that it was more complex than that and Stan might regret this one big time.

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I don’t think Stan will get fired in-season. John McDonough will be in charge of hiring the next GM and since McDonough isn’t a hockey guy and doesn’t have an extensive hockey network it would be harder for him to hire someone in-season and get it right. If he does fire him then it wouldn’t totally shock me if he just calls Eddie Olzcyck to run the show.

I want to get behind Colliton. I like him. I just don’t think he is an upgrade over Joel Quenneville. I will probably make a few bitchy remarks about the situation during the season. I can’t help myself.

Prob not.

That’s it for August. The season can’t get here soon enough. The Blackhawks aren’t “back”, but they’re almost back in our lives and I will settle for that right now.