Bryan Bickell Is Worth Every Penny! (In The Postseason)

The Chicago Blackhawks keep winning games in the playoffs, and a large reason the Hawks have succeeded in the playoffs is because Bryan Bickell is worth every penny during the postseason. The power forward was rewarded for his 2013 season but most importantly his huge 2013 Stanley Cup playoff run which included 9 goals and 8 assists which included an overtime winner against the current opponent the Minnesota Wild.

Everyone and I mean everyone thought when Stan Bowman signed Bickell to a 4 year 16 million dollar contract in the offseason it was a steal for the Blackhawks and everyone daydreamed about how many goals the Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Bryan Bickell line would score in the 2013-2014 season.  A funny thing happened on the way to a career season, the first thing is that it never appeared that Bickell was healthy during the regular season.  He had a knee sprain that was disclosed after the Stanley Cup Finals last June and he didn’t seem to play confident on his knee and in a blink of an eye Bickell was off the top line.

As soon as Bickell was back skating on the third line the naysayers were back in full force claiming Stan lost his mind with the Bickell signing.  Yes, we all have our favorites, but if you look back at Bickell’s playing history he’s never been a great regular season player and on Twitter and in comment sections I was asked how I possibly could defend Bickell while complaining about other players performance.  The argument was simple,  look at the entire piece of work.  Bickell doesn’t make big hits during the regular season and he doesn’t plant himself in front of the net during the regular season for some reason which is why he seems to find himself as a healthy scratch sometime in February or March.

Bickell is a playoff performer and all it takes is one stat for you to understand that fact which is the player in the NHL with the most goals in the Stanley Cup Playoffs in the past two seasons in Bryan Bickell with 9 last season and through 11 games this postseason he has 6 including a huge game tying goal last night.  Bickell does all the things he doesn’t do in the regular season and then turns all of things up 10 notches when the playoff lights are turned on from big hits to screens to of course big time goals.

This past week I read that Bickell’s contract is one of the 5 worst contracts in the NHL which anyone could make a huge argument for and it would be difficult to argue against. Bickell’s regular season total is 279 games played with 51 goals 54 assists and 105 points.  This is mediocre at best for anyone that gets the cash he makes a year!  Bickell on the other hand in 49 playoff games has 19 career goals and 14 assists for 36 points.

This is why in my mind Bryan Bickell is worth every penny he gets! The regular season is a grind to get you a spot in the dance, it’s what you do at the dance that matters and Bickell has proved he’s great on the biggest stage in the NHL in the most important moments and in the end worth that huge contract!

What do you think? Is Bickell worth 4 million a year?

For more Blackhawks updates and conversation follow us on Twitter @Blackhawk_Up or Like our Facebook page at Blackhawkup.

LET’S GO HAWKS!!!