The party is over now. It’s truly headache and hangover time, Chicago Blackhawks fans.
Sure, four points to reach the playoffs isn’t an insurmountable obstacle, but jumping three teams probably is. Mostly because it’s hard to imagine them playing that much better down the stretch of this hockey season than they have so far. Barring a major trade, this is who they really are and it’s not enough to qualify for the postseason. The Cup was nice, but it’s clear they’re not headed back to the postseason to possibly repeat in 2011.
And with that realization in place, it’s time to label GM Stan Bowman’s off-season purge for what it is- a terrible mismanagement of a precarious situation. And it conveys how Bowman is clearly in way over his head.
By Paul M. Banks
Now it’s not all Stanley’s fault, but much of it is. Just like how his hockey blue blood family lineage isn’t the only reason he got to where he is at such a young age. But it’s a big part of it.
The man Bowman replaced, ex-GM Dale Tallon, is the one who created the salary cap time bomb. And it was well worth it in order to make a team to finally end the half-century Cup drought, but the post-party clean up leaves a lot to be desired. They kept the four young players of the core in tact (Seabs, Duncan Keith, Kaner, and Tazer), but maybe they should have sacrificed one or two in the name of keeping all the role players?
Maybe if there were a better supporting cast in place right now, superstar Patrick Kane’s alcoholic binges would be less of a story?
The Hawks let a major piece go in Big Buff, and Atlanta has figured out how to use him in ways the Hawks front office never could fathom. And they miss Ben Eager too, especially if they do somehow do get that #8 seed and face Vancouver in the first round. Buffy the Luongo Slayer and Eager got in the Borat lookalike goaltender’s head and in his crease. That’s how they were able to bear the Canucks twice in the playoffs. This year? They don’t have the necessary weapons to beat one of the NHL’s finest.
And the Hawks miss secondary scoring very badly in Andrew Ladd and Kris Versteeg. People really underrated how important that third line offense really is/was.
But the biggest blunder was letting Antti Niemi go to arbitration (a case that was an inevitable loss) and replacing him with Marty Turco. How on Earth could anyone consider this an upgrade? Or even a push?
You need a goalie, especially in the playoffs. And how does getting a smaller, older, less talented goalie strike fear into the hearts of your playoff opponents? We all know how much goaltending matters in the playoffs. Remember how many games in the San Jose series Niemi won all by himself?
And don’t forget the loss of Chicago’s best soundbite, “fourth-liner” forward Adam Burish. By far the most interesting and funniest member of the team (partially because no one else has ever been even remotely interesting to listen to on the team), he could lighten up the locker room and relieve tension in the team when things got tough.
And this year there’s been quite a few of those moments, so his humor is more needed than ever.
Paul M. Banks is CEO of The Sports Bank.net. He is also a regular contributor to the Tribune’s Chicago Now network, Walter Football.com, Yardbarker Network, and Fox Sports.com
He does a weekly radio segment on Chicagoland Sports Radio.com and Cleveland.com
You can follow him on Twitter @thesportsbank