How will the Chicago Blackhawks be affected by the NHL salary cap skyrocketing?

We have all anticipated that the NHL salary cap would be going up in the next few seasons. But it now seems that it may rise far more rapidly than ever thought before.

Wow. Even the most aggressive estimates that I had been hearing anecdotally had the cap rising to maybe $100 million dollars by 2027. It now seems that that was a gross underestimate.

The big question on every Hawks fan's mind should be, "How does this impact our team's future contracts?"

Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news... but I theorize that this will significantly hurt the Hawks ability to attract a big name free agent in the next 1-2 seasons. The reason being that now more teams (and specifically, contending teams) will have the necessary cap space to afford to sign huge contracts where they may not have been able to previously.

That means that our collective dream of seeing Mikko Rantanen or Mitch Marner in a Hawks jersey next year may have just gotten much less realistic. If Toronto, which currently is about $3 million dollars over the cap, suddenly has nearly $20 million dollars free next season to re-sign Marner, odds are they will get that deal done.

Is There Any Good News For the Hawks?

There is certainly a silver lining here, which should ease Hawks fans' minds somewhat. The Hawks will now have an overabundance of cap space available with which to sign all their young exciting prospects over the next few seasons. Not to mention that Seth Jones' "albatross" of a contract will seem miniscule in short order. (After this news, I am firmly in the camp of keeping him by the way).

Kyle Davidson just hired Mike O'Hearn, a renowned capologist to help navigate the next few seasons of contract negotiations and cap management. Clearly Kyle has done his homework and is preparing to maximize the new massive salary cap space that the Hawks will have. This is a front office that has shown that they understand how to structure the cap for the future to maximum effect, as evidenced by the excellent Alex Vlasic contract.

So, Blackhawks fans should feel optimistic that Davidson will utilize this cap space to lock up Connor Bedard, Frank Nazar, Artyum Levshunov, Kevin Korchinski, Nolan Allen, and others when the time is right. And since the Hawks will still likely come out of those resignings with cap space to play with, they can look toward the next big batch of free agents like Kirill Kaprizov, Jack Eichel or even... Connor McDavid.

With the cap rising so dramatically, it isn't unrealistic to imagine that the Hawks could resign ALL their great young players to long-term contracts, and still have the remaining cap space to acquire a game-breaking player like Eichel, Kaprizov, or McDavid.

So while the immediate future looks grim for the Hawks chances of signing this summer's "big-fish" free agents, the long term chances of the Hawks rebuilding a contending term, locking up the young players, and making a push for future star free agents just went up. Maintain the longview Hawks fans, this team, and this franchise will be on the rise very soon.