Someone is going to get paid by the Blackhawks in the coming weeks. It might even be a few people.
That could come through trade. That could come through free agency.
Regardless of how many players are brought on and through which route, the Blackhawks will be adding plenty of salary to their books soon, because, well, they have to in order to get to the cap floor.
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Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson didn’t think that would be an issue either. He’ll have the company checkbook ready to go.
“I have no concern about getting to the cap floor; that’s going to happen with general ease,” Davidson said recently. “It’s just how we get there will be an interesting road. There will be options, should we go into free agency. There’s options via trade, whether there’s players we proactively we go out and get, or contracts people are looking to move. I’m open to anything. We don’t have a limit on how much we’re willing to spend, but there’s also just so much realistically that we can spend as well. We’ll see where we end up on the cap.”
Where the Blackhawks will end up is unknown, but we have an idea of where they need to at least get to. With the cap ceiling expected to be $83.5 million next season, the cap floor will likely be $62 million. That’s where the Blackhawks have to reach.
Let’s start with the players they already have signed for next season and who will likely be in the NHL.
Forwards (10 players, $18,091,666 cap hit total)
Tyler Johnson — $5,000,000
Andreas Athanasiou — $4,250,000
Jason Dickinson — $2,650,000
Colin Blackwell — $1,200,000
Cole Guttman — $950,000
Lukas Reichel — $925,000
Reese Johnson — $800,000
MacKenzie Entwistle — $800,000
Taylor Raddysh — $758,333
Boris Katchouk — $758,333
Defensemen (5 players, $20,566,667)
Seth Jones — $9,500,000
Nikita Zaitsev — $4,500,000
Connor Murphy — $4,400,000
Jarred Tinordi _ $1,250,000
Alex Vlasic — $916,667
Goalies (2 players, $4,762,500)
Petr Mrazek — $3,800,000
Arvid Soderblom — $962,500
Those 17 players add up to $43,420,833 in cap hits. On top of that will be Duncan Keith’s recapture penalty of $1,938,456, Henrik Borgstrom’s buyout of $183,334, Brett Connolly’s buyout of $1,166,667 and Jake McCabe’s retained salary of $2,000,000. That all brings the Blackhawks to $48,709,290 and $13,290,710 below the ceiling.
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Now, let’s predict a few more roster spots. First, the Blackhawks will draft Connor Bedard with the No. 1 pick and he’ll be in the lineup next season. He’ll have a $950,000 cap hit. Second, the Blackhawks are expected to re-sign restricted free agent Philipp Kurashev. How much he’ll re-sign for will likely depend on his contract length, but Evolving Hockey’s formula has him most likely re-signing for $1,900,000 on a two-year deal. Adding in those contracts, the Blackhawks are $10,444,710 below the floor with 12 forwards, five defensemen and two goalies signed.
After Bedard and Kurashev, there aren’t any other players you can assume definitively will be in the lineup next season. Caleb Jones and/or Ian Mitchell could return to the defense if given new contracts. Kevin Korchinski ($918,333 cap hit), Wyatt Kasier ($916,667), Isaak Phillips ($859,167) and Filip Roos ($925,000) could be in the mix for defenseman spots. You would think the Blackhawks keep a spot sort of open for Korchinski in case he’s ready to make the jump next season. Overall, the Blackhawks will probably carry seven defensemen, and it’s likely the two defensemen in addition to Seth Jones, Murphy, Zaitsev, Tinordi and Vlasic are internal candidates. Unless the Blackhawks give Caleb Jones a decent bump from his $1.35 million cap hit from last season, those spots aren’t likely to do much damage in the bigger financial picture.
Let’s say the Blackhawks fill up $2 million in cap space from those two defenseman spots. That puts the Blackhawks with about $8.45 million in cap space to get to the cap floor. They’ll probably want to float a little higher than the floor, too, just to be safe. So, the Blackhawks will likely seek to obtain at least $10 million in cap space in the next few weeks.
Some of that could come by acquiring a “bad” contract at the draft. The Blackhawks are open to utilizing their cap space to help out another team as long as they’re well compensated in the form of prospects and/or draft picks. Dickinson, Zaitsev and Mrazek were all acquired in such trades.
Depending on how that plays out at the draft, the Blackhawks will then know how much they need to spend in free agency. It’s possible there isn’t a cap trade to be made prior to free agency, and they’ll have to sign multiple players to get to the floor. The Blackhawks are undoubtedly game-planning each scenario. You can probably expect the Blackhawks to pay over market value, too, just like they did in re-signing Athanasiou. It’s the term, not the money, that’s important to Davidson. He’ll be willing to up his offer as long he can keep contracts to one or two years.
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For example, Evolving Hockey projects Max Domi to be worth a $4,572,000 cap hit on a three-year deal. For the Blackhawks to lure Domi from another team and stick to their term restrictions, they could come in with an offer of something like $6 million for two years.
Domi is the name most mentioned because of how well he fit in last season, but there is an assortment of players who could fit the Blackhawks’ criteria. Maybe someone like Ivan Barbashev sees the Blackhawks as an enticing two-year option to play alongside Bedard, be paid well for a few years and then explore a long-term deal elsewhere. Tomas Tatar could be another player who welcomes a short-term deal.
Whether it’s Domi, Barbashev, Tatar or someone else, the Blackhawks should have no trouble finding a veteran or two who will gladly accept a larger-than-expected paycheck. If you have money to spend, players will come. You’ll never hear a GM say “I just can’t find a way to spend this money.” That’s never a problem in the NHL.
(Top photo of Kyle Davidson: Chase Agnello-Dean / NHLI via Getty Images)
