Équipe: 2024-25 Blackhawks de Chicago

Date de création initiale: 25 juin 2024

Publié: 25 juin 2024

Mode - plafond salarial: Basique

Hawks have a ton of picks and a ton of Cap Space but are still a few years away from really competing. The best way forward would be to make your picks and build from within instead of taking the huge amount of cap space and signing UFAs who will be mid 30s and slowing down by the time they are ready to compete which is when you would see contract regret from this year.

Keeping this in mind I would say the Hawks should let their young guys play, gain experience, and grow instead of bringing in older UFAs to take the Ice-time. So what do they do with their 33M in cap space? Maybe take on a bad contact and get paid to do it?

In this Trade the Hawks take Jake Campbells Contract from the Oilers and for their trouble they receive Xavier Bourgault (oilers top Prospect) and the RFA rights to Dylan Holloway (who showed in playoffs that he still has a very good upside) in return the Blackhawks send Soderblom (middle of the road backup goalie) and the Rights to Taylor Raddysh (who is a McDavid Teammate from Junior and not a 100% re-sign for the Hawks anyway). Even after taking on the Campbell Contract and taking care of inhouse contracts the Hawks will still have 22M in cap space.

What does this do for the Hawks future? The Frozen Cap Era is over, the Salary Cap will be growing for the for-seeable future. After the 2024-25 season the Blackhawks get an additional 3.6M in Cap Space back (McCabe Retain and Bailey Buyout). Bedard, Korshinski, Nazar, Del Mastro and Reichel the 5 Hawks players who are likely to get larger second contracts are still under contract for 2 years. Campbells deal expires in 3 years. Because of this the Hawks could just bury campbell for at least 2 years and depending how the cap is looking then could buy out the last year of his contract then which would be a small cap penalty. Lets also remember how the Blackhawks organization has rehabbed Mrazek's name, who is to say they couldn't do the same for Campbell. To me this deal almost makes too much sense and I am sure Edmonton would love to get out of the Campbell Contract without having to lose 1.5M in Cap Space for the Next 6 Years.