A Stan Bowman Performance Review Blog
The dust has settled, but my anger is still up. Yesterday in the press conference the triumvirate of treason(Rocky, Lil John, Stan) looked us dead in the eye and said that everyone was accountable. I went into great detail about how John McDonough is responsible for his role yesterday. Today is the day to hold Stan Bowman accountable since nobody at 1901 West Madison wants to do so. They just want to fire a legend and then lie about what happened.
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Without further ado, a performance review of Stan Bowman since the summer of 2015:
June 30th, 2015: Blackhawks trade Brandon Saad to Columbus For Anisimov, Jeremy Morin, Marko Dano, and a 4th round pick
Ahh, the first reality check that hit after an unbelieavable Stanley Cup run. It was one of my favorite summers ever. The Blackhawks were riding high and I was riding on the party bus with the Stanley Cup.
Brandon Saad was an RFA and the Blackhawks were up against the Cap. A deal was going to be tricky, but the talk coming from Bowman was that the Blackhawks were absolutely going to bring back the 22 year-old who contributed to the 2013 and 2015 Stanley Cups and Brandon Saad also said how much he wanted to be Chicago. The feeling was that something was going to work out…and then bang it didn’t. The story goes a little something like this…Brandon Saad turned negotiations over to his father. Saad’s dad said to Stan something to the affect of “you just gave Toews and Kane 10.5 million. My son has won 2 Cups. He deserves at least 7M”. Stan was afraid of an offersheet coming so rather than play hardball against Saad’s dad and make him hold out he traded him quickly to Columbus to what boiled down to Saad for Anisimov. We were told that Marko Dano was going to be an important player here…he scored exactly ONE goal for the Blackhawks and now plays for the Avs where he is a frequent health bomb.
I want to explain what an RFA offersheet is in case people don’t know. Basically if another team, like in this case CBJ, wants to sign a restricted free agent they can try. The team who controls the RFA’s rights has the opportunity to match the offer OR if they feel it’s too rich they can let the player walk and get draft pick compensation. The compensation for an offersheet between $5M and $6.7M in 2015 was a 1st round pick, a 2nd round pick, and a 3rd round pick in the following draft. That is A LOT of ammunition and if the offersheet did in fact come from CBJ well those picks in 2016 would’ve been 3rd overall, 34th overall, and 65th overall. That’s a lot of revisionist history, but if you’ve got an Anisimov package in one hand and a treasure trove package of draft picks in the other I don’t know how you justify that trade. Anisimov had had a fine career up to that point but he had scored 20 goals ONE time and was coming off an injury shortened season in which he scored 7 goals. Tough look for Stan.
Or…no offersheet comes and you just let Saad hold out forever the way the Leafs are doing right now with William Nylander.
Grade: D+. The only reason this doesn’t get an F is because Anisimov has been productive here in some respects while playing with Patrick Kane and Panarin. On principle alone its an F, but performance based it’s a D.
June 30th, 2015: Artem Anisimov Signs 5 year extension at $4.55M AAV
A sight unseen 5 year extension for a player coming off an injury and scoring 7 goals. The game was getting faster, younger, quicker, and smaller. Bowman signed a guy at the end of his prime years to a 5 year deal who can’t play in the modern NHL.
Grade: F
July 10th, 2015: Chicago Trades Patrick Sharp and Stephen Johns To Dallas For Trevor Daley and Ryan Garbutt
At the time of the trade I said the following:
Strange part of this trade is that it doesn’t clear all that much cap space. Daley at $3.3M and Garbutt is at $1.8M, but the Stars are retaining 50% of his salary so the Hawks get him at $900k. So the Hawks cleared about $1.7M by my math
So you lose a promising young defenseman in Johns(and this deal cost you Oduya as well) just to get rid of one of your CORE leaders so you can give his money to Anisimov. The Blackhawks were over a barrell when they made this move relative to the cap but they put themselves over the barrell. They wouldn’t have needed to make this trade if Stan had properly managed the Saad/Anisimov situation. Or just asked for nothing in return. Don’t take on a Trevor Daley.
Neither Daley nor Garbutt even finished the season with the Blackhawks this is the most F-iest F Grade that was ever an F
Grade: F
September 26th, 2015: Blackhawks Sign Brent Seabrook To An 8 year extension $6.85AAV
This one is tough. Seabrook is a warrior. He is one of my favorite players of all-time. A true core player. Having said that…Seabrook will make nearly $100M in paychecks from the Chicago Blackhawks over the course of his career and that is too much for him in the cap era. Credit to Seabs for having an incredible agent and being a hell of a player. They had to sign him, but giving a guy essentially a lifetime contract at 30 years old is bad business. No matter how important he is to the team and in particular to Duncan Keith. It looks worse now than it did then because his game has declined. Seabrook is definitely still a capable NHL defenseman. He is nowhere near as bad as people say. However, $6.85M is far too much for a #5 defenseman. This is a tough grade
Grade: C
December 14th, 2015: Chicago Trades Trevor Daley To The Penguins For Rob Scuderi
At the time of the trade I said:
My first instinct was “Wow, well Scuderi is old. Probably on his last contract. He must be much cheaper than Daley. Save against the Cap”. Wrong. Rob Scuderi makes more than Daley. My next thought was “Scuderi is old. This has to be the last year of his deal. And the Hawks will save a year of having to pay Daley on the back end”. Wrong again. Their contracts expire at the same time.
Well as I am writing this it looks like the Penguins will be retaining some of Scuderi’s money and the Hawks will save about a million against the Cap.
Trevor Daley wasn’t a fit here. The Blackhawks system isn’t for everyone. Daley wasn’t getting the minutes he wanted. He wasn’t playing the side he wanted. He wasn’t open to changing or adapting his game to play with the defending Stanley Cup champion and he asked for a trade. Getting Rob Scuderi back who was absolutely COOKED at this point made zero sense. Trevor Daley went on to be an important player for Pittsburgh on their run to the Stanley Cup. He was talented. Everyone knew that. He also wasn’t a fit. Getting less than nothing in return for a guy who is an obvious talent makes this grade a…you can probably guess
Grade: F
INTERMISSION:
I’ve decided I am not going to do every single deal. Nobody cares about Sekac level trades. Let’s agree to skip them all and just give Stan a D grade on every move I fail to mention.
Reminder though…buy a shirt
February 26th, 2016: Blackhawks Trade Marko Dano and a 1st Round Pick to Winnipeg For Andrew Ladd
I won’t lie, there have been many critics of this trade in hindsight because the Blackhawks went on to lose in the first round to the Blues, but I liked that trade at the time and I still like it now. Sure, it would’ve been nice to have a 1st round pick in the 2016 draft, but the players selected in the Blackhawks draft pick range that year haven’t amounted to much as of yet. The Hawks had trouble on wing all year in their top 6 because they had lost Saad and Sharp. Bringing back Ladd to fill in the LW in the top 6 made sense. It just didn’t work out. I don’t blame Stan for rolling the dice here while trying to put the team over the top in the West.
Grade: B
February 26th, 2016: Blackhawks Trade Phillip Danault and a 2nd round pick to Montreal for Dale Weise and Thomas Fleischmann
YIKES. I loved Dale Weise that year. I openly campaigned for him to be acquired. I was excited when they got him. Another powerforward type for the bottom 6 in order to bang bodies in the West. He just didn’t work out here and Phillip Danault has gone on to be very good. Danault had played 30 games that season in the bottom 6 and even though he hadn’t been scoring a ton he looked like a player. Getting those two guys didn’t even end up being an upgrade over Danault that year let alone the future. Imagine Danault as a center for this team now at a significantly lower cost than Anisimov. Tough one to swallow
Grade: F
March 8th, 2016: Blackhawks Sign Marcus Kruger To a 3-year extension worth $3.083M AAV
Again, similar to the Seabrook situation. Kruger is exceptionally valuable and even more valuable to the Blackhawks in particular. He did the Blackhawks a favor the summer before when he took less than market value at $1.5M and waited until the Blackhawks had their house in order before signing. This was a “make up” deal in a sense, but it was too rich for a 4th liner. That’s the reality. I love Kruger, but you can’t give out this deal when you have no money.
Grade: D+
June 15th, 2016: Blackhawks Trade Bickell And Teravainen For Draft Picks
The Blackhawks basically chose to keep Kruger rather than Teravainen. Teravainen’s talent was so obvious and he’s developed into a force for the Hurricanes after some seasoning and slow start, but he was somewhat of a frustrating player in Chicago. You can’t make this move though. Bickell’s contract(another gaffe) was coming off the books anyways. Just stomach it for one more year and also wait to see what you can do with Kruger. Teravainen is the modern NHL winger. They needed him. Stan got ripped off with this one.
Grade: F
June 24th, 2016: Blackhawks Trade Andrew Shaw to Montreal for Two 2nd Round picks
A player that has never truly been replaced. Andrew Shaw was a pending RFA. The Blackhawks, because of Stan Bowman, had no money to give him, so he had to be traded. I loved Shaw, but this was easily Stan’s best deal of his life because of what Mark Kelley turned those picks into. Namely…Alex Debrincat.
Grade: A
BLACK FRIDAY: JUNE 23rd 2017
Blackhawks Trade Artemi Panarin To Columbus For Brandon Saad And Anton Forsberg
One of the darker days of this era. Bowman trades Panarin for Saad and an AHL level goalie. The logic was that Saad would give them two things…1) two-way game and that would mitigate some of the game lost by Marian Hossa’s effective retirement and 2) cap certainty going forward as Panarin only had 2 years left on his deal and Saad had four.
What happened was that Saad turned into a one-way at best player and Panarin has become a legitimate MVP type player. Stan short-changed Patrick Kane by taking away his soulmate. And that whole thinking that the Blackhawks wouldn’t be able to afford Panarin after this season when he would need another contract is absolute bullshit. The Blackhawks thanks to bonus overages essentially absurbed a $9m cap hit last year, the $6m cap hit from Saad(which is the same for Panarin) plus $3M in the bonus. So when Stan says they couldn’t afford $9M for Panarin next year…false. Math says they already did. And Panarin is $3M more valuable than Saad. He’s actually probably more than that. HORRIBLE trade.
Grade: F-minus
Nik Hjalmarsson to Arizona For Connor Murphy
Now look, I don’t hate Connor Murphy. I think he’s smart, plays hard, plays the game right. I think given time he would’ve picked up Joel’s system and been an effective player. I don’t think his ceiling is a bottom pair defender. He’s just not great with the puck on his stick. However, he’s not Hjalmarsson. Hjalmarsson is a bonafide shut down defenseman, an Iron Man, and I think he too should have his number retired. You don’t trade a player and a leader like that on a whim for a guy who you’re projecting to maybe someday be a good player. That’s what Stan did. Again, he preached cap certainty, as Hjalmarsson would need a new deal. Well he already extended with Arizona for $5M over the next two years. Stan couldn’t stomach that? Well Murphy, Manning, and Rutta are making a combined $8.35M and all of them are going to be healthy scratches many times. I’d rather have Hjalmarsson for 5million than those 3 guys for 8M+. Call me crazy.
Grade: F-minus
This thing is LONG as it is. So let’s fly through them
The Hartman trade: TBD. I think Edjsall stinks. Can’t skate well enough or do anything well enough besides shoot to be an effective NHL player. It was obvious from Day 1 if you know what you’re looking at. I’ve liked what I’ve seen from Nic Beaudin in limited action, but he’s a ways away from being able to help the aging core and Ryan Hartman is an every day player right now. Hartman is certainly better and cheaper than some of the guys who have been regulars this year. I hope Stan wins this one, but the idea that he got the best of David Poile in a trade seems unlikely. The Hinostroza trade…since Stan acquired nothing but his precious cap space and then did nothing with I am going to ahead and give that one an incomplete/F grade. Leaning heavily towards F. Hinostroza is better than Kahun. If Kahun were able to play on the 3rd line then the bottom 6 would look a lot better. The point of this blog isn’t Kahun though. It’s that there’s a parrallel universe where Joel is still the head coach and the team never stopped winning because the Blackhawks didn’t have their legs shot off by Stan Bowman’s imcompetence. It’s about…accountability. It’s about pointing out that your lineup could’ve very easily looked like this in 2018
Debrincat-Toews-Teravainen
Panarin-Danault-Kane
Saad-Schmaltz-Hinostroza
Hayden-Hartman-Fortin
Do the math on capfriendly. This could be our team, it may not be plausible and hindsight is always 20/20 but some of these moves were headscratchers even at the time. Plausible, maybe not. Possible…most definitely. And yet…instead we have a last place team, a fired hall of famer, and a dynasty sacked from within. #FireStan