Chicago Blackhawks’ Stan Bowman Has Mismanaged The Salary Cap

Chicago Blackhawks general manager Stan Bowman deserves some criticism for handling the team’s salary cap situation

The Chicago Blackhawks once again find themselves in salary cap hell this offseason. Now for the third straight year, the Blackhawks must trade a younger player to get out from underneath a bad contract.

While everyone praises Bowman for his work on building three Stanley Cup champions, he needs to get some of the blame for the long term future of the team not looking so good.

While every general manager is not perfect, his biggest flaw is with contracts. Bowman has repeatedly hurt the Blackhawks by overpaying role players.

The examples I am going to give have hurt or are going to hurt the Blackhawks’ future and have forced or will force them to deal a younger player. I will bring up longer term deals that have helped create the salary cap mess the Blackhawks are in.

Rostislav Olesz

Remember him? Olesz was the player the Blackhawks received when moving Brian Campbell to Florida. He played in 6 games for the Blackhawks and was not good.

The Blackhawks had to use their compliance buyout on him and save $3.25 million against the cap. The ‘Hawks could have used the compliance buyout on another player at the time.

David Rundblad

David Rundblad was a pickup from the start. The Blackhawks gave up a second-round pick in 2014 for him.

He was a not a productive player but received a two-year, $2 million contract in 2015. This was another head scratcher because Joel Quenneville never played him.

He last played for the Blackhawks in the 2016 postseason against the Blues. He committed an egregious turnover, costing the ‘Hawks Game 7. The ‘Hawks had to mutually part ways with him in 2016.

Brandon Bollig

Brandon Bollig was a fourth-line player who didn’t score much. In 2014, Bollig got a three-year, $3.75  million contract extension.  People’s reaction was “why.”

Bowman doubled the contract of a guy who rarely played. Thankfully, Bowman found out that the Calgary Flames loved Bolling, and he was able to trade him for a third-round pick.

Bryan Bickell

Bryan Bickell is a tragic story. He was not a strong regular-season player but seemed to show in the playoffs.

In 2013, he showed up large and helped the Blackhawks win their second Stanley Cup championship in the current era.

Bickell had showed so much promise in the 2013 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Bickell scored 9 goals and had 8 assists for 17 points in 23 games. He was also responsible for one of the goals in 17 seconds in Game 6 of the Final against Boston.

After that season, the Blackhawks rewarded Bickell with a four-year, $16 million dollar contract. Bicks was good in the playoffs the following year with 7 goals and 3 assists but he wasn’t the same.

He spent most of the 2015-16 season at Rockford. He would be traded to the Carolina Hurricanes along with Teuvo Teravainen to dump his terrible contract.

Sadly, Bickell would be diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. This would explain the sudden drop in this play. If you look at Bickell’s contract from purely salary cap move, it was a bad deal. If you look at Bickell from an emotional point of view, it was tragic.

Marcus Kruger

Marcus Kruger was a great find by the Blackhawks in the 2009 NHL Draft. Kruger has always been a valuable guy to the Blackhawks. He is a defensive forward who can shut down opposing teams.

When his contract was up in 2015-16, Kruger took $1.5 million to help get the Blackhawks under the cap. That was a slight raise from his $1,287,000 deal from the previous two seasons.

Bowman must have had a handshake agreement with Kruger because when his contract expired again in 2016-17, he got paid. Bowman signed him to a three-year, $3,083,333 deal.

The latest trade rumor floating around the Blackhawks involves Kruger and Trevor van Reimsdyk to the Vegas Golden Knights for cap space. Bowman once again will have to sweeten the deal to get another one of his bad contracts off the books.

Brent Seabrook

Brent Seabrook has been vital piece of the three Stanley Cup championships in this era. He was once a top-pairing defenseman with Duncan Keith for a number of seasons.

As of last season we saw those days are long past him. Seabrook looks to be slowing down in a hurry.

Bowman gave him an eight-year, $55 million contract in 2016-17. Bowman also gave Seabrook a full no-movement clause in his contract, so the Blackhawks cannot trade him until 2022-23. Seabrook has a modified NTC clause for the last two years of his deal.

This deal is going to cripple the Blackhawks for years to come. They are getting declining results on their investment and they do not have cap space to cover for it.

In recent years, the Blackhawks have had to trade away Brandon Saad, Andrew Shaw, Nick Leddy and Teravainen to get underneath the salary cap. That is due to Bowman’s mismanagement of the situation.

Once again this offseason, there will be more younger type players moved to compensate for the mismanagement of the cap.