Is This The End Of Brent Seabrook In A Blackhawks Uniform?
A pretty big news dump yesterday from the Blackhawks. One that they teased before Christmas and officially announced yesterday. Fitting that it was on boxing day. A day traditionally where unwanted presents were repackaged and given to the loyal servants of the master. It feels like that is what has become of Brent Seabrook. Unwanted, discarded, thrown out, and maybe this is actually finally the end. All reports are that it’s not. They’re saying that these surgeries were needed and the Blackhawks hope that Seabrook, who will be 35, will come back a better and stronger players in 2020-21. And you know…this organization ALWAYS tells the truth
Quite frankly the Blackhawks haven’t earned the trust of the fan base. It’s eroded along with their place in the NHL landscape. I am sure Brent Seabrook does have some nagging injuries that could be cleaned up. I am also a person with a brain and realize that Brent Seabrook would be playing if the Blackhawks wanted him to play. This was the quote from Seabrook not even two full months ago
Does that sound like a guy who is longing for LTIR? Does that sound like a guy who is okay with being a “healthy scratch” for Slater Koekkoek? You fast forward 6 weeks, six pretty good weeks of Seabrook playing with Calvin de Haan and averaging over 18 minutes per game and then bam…healthy scratch again. Then a mystery announcement that Brent Seabrook wouldn’t be making a road trip to Winnipeg on December 19th, then a week of silence about Brent Seabrook and now he’s done for the year and needs three separate surgeries. Sorry, but that doesn’t add up. It’s not a conspiracy. If the Blackhawks wanted Seabrook to be playing, he would be playing. That is a fact. The truth is that they have put him on an ice floe in favor of Adam Boqvist, Slater Koekkoek and $6.875M in cap space that comes with Seabrook going on LTIR.
Stan Bowman, McDonough, and Colliton can talk about how they want Seabrook back in the future at age 35/36, but they don’t even want him now at 34. This feels like the end for Seabrook in a Blackhawks uniform. He is still a capable NHL defenseman, but he’s not playing at a level worthy of the $6.875M Stan Bowman gave him. The Blackhawks know it and so does everyone else in the NHL. They’re unable to trade him. The structure of his deal makes buying him out untenable because of the way the cap relief would yo-yo between now and the end of his deal in 2024. The only hope of relief for the Blackhawks is this nagging mysterious injury route that lands him on the operating table and LTIR forever.
What does this mean for the rest of the 2019-20 season? Well, between Calvin de Haan and Seabrook both being on LTIR with Shaw and Caggiula the Blackhawks suddenly have over $16M in cap space available. The question becomes what Stan Bowman will do and how much pressure he feels right now to make the playoffs. There should be substantial pressure on Bowman because you know…it’s been 5 years without a playoff series win and they’re staring at 3 straight years in the lottery. That should be unacceptable considering there’s only “one goal”. Montreal has been scouting the Blackhawks. The Blackhawks have been in Boston scouting the Bruins. It makes me worry that Stan Bowman will take this new found Cap Space and make a desperate move to try and sneak into that second wild card spot in order to save his job. In reality the Blackhawks should just fire Bowman, probably fire Colliton, hand the keys to Norm MacIver on an interim basis, hire a search firm to find the next GM because John McDonough is incapable of hiring someone who won’t bow down to him, and begin to sell off pieces like Gustafsson, Zak Smith, Caggiula if he comes back healthy, and maybe Lehner if he makes it clear that he will be testing free agency again this summer. They’re currently in 7th place and the Blackhawks just got absolutely housed at home by one of the worst teams in the NHL. If Bowman makes a move to buy and cites the St Louis Blues from 2019 then he should not only be fired, but thrown in jail.
The Seabrook situation is ugly. Another botched decision by Stan Bowman in a long string of them. LTIR isn’t exactly a solution to the Seabrook cap hit problem long term, but it won’t be as difficult to manage as the Hossa deal because the Blackhawks overall cap sitaution shouldn’t be as tight and they’ll have a handful of theoretically key contributors playing on entry level deals. Seabrook’s potential future on LTIR shouldn’t be dismissed. The Blackhawks don’t want him. They save more by having him on LTIR than by buying him out. There aren’t options. Only lies, exaggerations, and excuses. Seabrook deserves better.
Put #7 in the rafters, and maybe have the other #7 be the next GM.
