The Athletic Says That Seabrook Has The Worst Contract In The NHL

1. Brent Seabrook, CHI
Contract: $6.875M x five years
Surplus Value: -$33.2M
Positive Value Probability: 0.1%

The biggest shock to me was not that Seabrook ended up number one (anybody could’ve guessed that) it’s that there are still five years left on his deal. Five! At $6.875 million. For a replacement-level defenseman. Who is 34-years-old. I’m not sure how any of that is possible, and I’m not even sure how probable it is that Seabrook actually finishes the remainder of the deal in the NHL.

I don’t know who wrote this article. I don’t know what the formula for this ranking system was. “Positive Value Probability” is 1000% a made-up statistic. You wanna know what I value? Grit. Being a locker room guy. Experience. Not talking to the media. Hair flips. And my memories. A message for the haters…peace out

Now that I’ve built up enough good Brent Seabrook equity in the first paragraph, we can speak honestly here the rest of the way. I am not sure if this is the worst contract in the league, but it is ABSOLUTELY the worst contract on the Blackhawks and it has been for some time. I really hope that there is some truth to what Stan Bowman said earlier this summer. That the Blackhawks have put Seabrook in difficult positions in recent years. Seabrook has played almost exclusively with young players who would get in trouble and get lost out there. BUT….they also played him with Duncan Keith and the results weren’t good either. Seabrook is at the stage of his career where he needs to get all of the sheltered minutes possible and perhaps get more nights in the press box. He’s an asset in the locker room and on the bench. They’ll miss his leadership if he’s out of the lineup, but he has become more and more of a liability on the ice as this contract has gone on and honestly he hasn’t been that great since this contract started. And…THERE ARE 5 YEARS LEFT ON THIS DEAL

That is the most astounding part of the Seabrook contract. Stan Bowman gave him a deal based on the things I listed above…hair, leadership, and memories. That’s not how GMs are supposed to operate. GMs are supposed to base contracts on what you will do, not what you have done. That is CLEARLY not what happened with Seabrook who was already 31 years old when the contract started. Now, I’ve always been told that there was more going on behind the scenes with this deal. The Hawks really did value his leadership and they already traded Sharp. There has also been rumors that the Hawks were afraid about what would become of Duncan Keith without his buddy around because Keith was going through some shit at that time. More than anything though…Stan isn’t good at playing hardball. At all. Couldn’t do it with Saad that summer either. Brent Seabrook stands to make $97.37M over the course of his career with the Blackhawks. ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS. Credit to Seabrook, MAJOR credit to his agent. His agent should have that on his business card or in his mission statement. “I’m the guy who got Seabrook $100M”. The structure of that deal with the signing bonuses every year also make it nearly impossible for Seabrook to be bought-out. If you are stacking up reasons for firing Stan Bowman you might want to start with this contract. Nobody has ever been out-negotiated more in a deal than Stan was there.

Still though…the memories are so great. The best ever. Love Seabs forever