ESPN Sucks: Faux-Moneyball Analysis

Friday's Puck Headlines at Puck Daddy contained an inexplicably stupid nugget from ESPN:

NHL fans lost an entire season due to hard-line owners seeking a tight salary cap. So it’s shocking that since the empty 2004-05 season, payroll is linked even more with winning. Before the lockout, a 10% increase in spending was worth about 5.8 team points (roughly three wins) over a season. Since the lockout, that number has ballooned to 9.2 points. The Wharton researchers theorize that this counterintuitive trend is a result of the CBA’s producing a tighter range of spending between teams. “Each dollar became that much more valuable,” they concluded.  

Hurricanes GM Jim Rutherford agrees: “Despite not having as big a gap, $16 million between the cap and the floor, teams that consistently spend at the top will still have an advantage in getting top players.” He also says low-payroll teams can succeed only for a short period. Nashville earned the Western Conference’s fourth seed this year with a slightly below-average payroll. But the team is winning on borrowed time. “The Predators are at that point where they’re either going to spend toward the cap or risk losing top young players,” Rutherford says. “So from a consistency basis, you can see the advantage for the teams that are able to routinely spend at the upper end.” 

The portion of the piece discussing hockey is quoted above, and there are several things that stick out as being blatantly and stupidly wrong just on the first read.  I have no idea why Wyshynski would link to such an awful piece, but hey, I guess it gives me something to talk about.

First of all, it's not shocking that payroll should be linked even more with winning (if it even is - I'll get there in a minute) - part of the idea of cost certainty was that you had limited dollars to give out, so the way you used those dollars becomes more important.  Furthermore, you couldn't make mistakes and pay your way out of them (which notably ended up not being the case - ask Wade Redden!).  The idea was that across the board, no one would have to spend as much to try to compete, but cost certainty undeniably makes the money that you do spend more important.

It's also worth pointing out that frequently, the floor or near-floor teams are not just victims of circumstance - they're quite often in the poor house because they build shitty teams, and then bemoan the fact that no one comes to their games.  Consequently, that more money tends to mean more wins should strike no one as a surprise.

The second thing that immediately jumps out: Nashville has succeeded for a lot longer than a "short period".  Nashville has been one of the 5 most successful teams in the regular season since the lockout, along with New Jersey, Vancouver, San Jose, and Detroit.  You'll notice that Nashville has also done so on a much smaller budget than those other four teams.  Rutherford's Hurricanes are 17th, though I suppose you can point out that they lucked into a Stanley Cup in the strangest year ever.

In any case, Nashville has clearly outperformed at least 80% of the teams in the league, and have done it on a shoestring budget.  They may never have finished #1 in the conference or something, but they've been remarkably consistent about remaining in playoff contention, and that's more than you can say for the 'Canes.

The third point is the fact that the comparison from the article of "increasing payroll by 10%" is highly unequal between the two time periods as well.  If you ran a cap-floor team in 2012, you had to spend around $48,000,000, and the cap was around $64,000,000.  You can only increase your payroll by 10% three times, so the entire difference between the top and the bottom of the league is condensed into only three such payroll jumps (and magnified further by the increased number of points in the league - getting there in just a second).  Prior to the lockout, team spending ranged anywhere from under $20,000,000 to over $70,000,000.  A payroll increase of 10% for a team at the bottom of the pay scale still left you in the bottom of the pay scale, and you could increase your payroll by 10% many more times.  The method of comparison is incredibly disingenuous and misleading.

The fourth and final point is the reason why this piece should've never been written, and betrays the fact that those doing the research for the piece didn't know anything about the NHL.  The reason you get more points per million dollars spent in today's NHL compared to the pre-lockout NHL is because everyone gets more points, no matter how much they spend!  The advent of the charity point for losing in overtime/shootout means that everyone gets a bunch of extra points each year.  Any measure in which you compare points earned under the current CBA, to the pre-2005 CBA, will always show that there are more points up for grabs under the current CBA, because there are so many more points awarded to NHL teams nowadays.

A quick check of hockey-reference.com shows that in 2004, the league average for standings points was 87, whereas in 2012, it was 92.  That's about 150 extra standings points in the system, that weren't originally there.  And remember, there were charity points from 2000-2004 for overtime losses, though not nearly as many as we currently have.  If ESPN was including numbers in the pre-lockout points/payroll figure from pre-2000, that would make the difference look even bigger, because in 1998-99, the league average for standings points was just 82 points.  Is it any wonder that you should see an increase in standings points earned by nearly any measure?

Anyways, the important thing to remember here is that ESPN sucks.

MvsW #0111 QoD

Marek vs Wyshynski #0111 (Apr 24, 2012) Question of the Day:
Who should win GM of the year?

Definitely not Dale Tallon, despite the fact that he's nominated for the award.  Dale Tallon dicked up hard, as he is prone to do, and was rewarded for it by failing into a division title because the Capitals inexplicably shit the bed for the entire regular season.  Everyone points out that the reason Tallon signed all the UFAs this off season was to hit the salary floor.  Of course, that ignores the fact that he signed 7 UFA's to hit the 2011-2012 salary floor (and notably, the last year of this Collective Bargaining Agreement), and instead of giving them money just for this year's floor, he handed out a total of 28 years and 112 million dollars.

The Panthers ended up being one of the worst division winners of the last 30 years, and Tallon will point to that (meaningless) banner as proof of his success this year.  And hey, I guess you could call it a success.  But the point is, he got a very small improvement this year, at the cost of future years.  That strategy works when you're trying to get over the hump and win a Cup, where the "future costs" will be due when your window has closed.  Instead, Tallon's short-term and uncreative accounting will have "future costs" right when this team is trying to become an elite team behind guys like Huberdeau, Gudbranson, and Markstrom.

Aside: I think there's something interesting about Tallon and Kris Versteeg's success this year.  Remember, a big part of the reason why Versteeg has wandered across several teams while scoring 25+ goals a year, is because CHI had to prematurely jettison him as a cap casualty after winning the Stanley Cup, because of Dale Tallon's supreme screw-up as the Blackhawk's GM in accidentally allowing him to become a quasi-free agent.  As a result, Versteeg (and others) ended up getting paid more than CHI would've wanted.  


In the end, Versteeg ended up getting traded several times over, until he ended up in Florida, reunited with the man who originally screwed up his second NHL contract, Dale Tallon.  It makes me smile to imagine that Dale Tallon somehow actually planned all this back when he botched the RFA qualifying offers.  "Barker is going to end up sucking anyways..." and "If I mess up with Versteeg now, then later on after I get fired, I'll be able to reacquire him 3 years later..."

Anyways, back from that tangent, I suppose I should point out that my answer to the question is probably David Poile.  If nothing else, I can point to Tyler Dellow's chart of NHL team records over this CBA (since the lockout) and note that the Predators are one of the 5 most successful teams since 2005, and have done it while spending way less than most of the rest of the league.  To some extent, I think this is probably the best argument - a GM's job is about a lot more than "right now" and more about where you're going next year and the year after, and how you're going to get there.  Of course, reaching those levels of success with obstacles other franchises don't face (namely, their finances and ownership situations during that time) makes the case even stronger.  Poile ought to have one of these on his desk.

Further than that, I've honestly been impressed with the testicular fortitude that Poile has displayed this year, while trying to walk a very fine line.  We've previously discussed the Suter/Weber situation here on StB.  Poile has been dealt a tough hand, but he's played it masterfully.  Maybe it will blow up in the end, with Weber and Suter walking out, but no one can point the finger at Poile for it at the end of the day.  Most GM's would've dragged the contract issues into the media, used it as an excuse to trade the player and save their own skins, and probably have gotten a rather poor haul in exchange for a #1 defenseman, rather than risk losing him for "nothing".

That "nothing" is misleading though - the "nothing" is a chance at postseason success, and a chance to convince the player that you're building something real, and to get them to commit to being a part of it.  Poile isn't throwing in the towel on Suter or Weber - he's trying to get them to stay, and he's playing the whole thing out publically in a manner where no one is the bad guy, helping keep things friendly between franchise and player.  In doing so, he's continued to help a fledgling fan base (relatively speaking) continue to grow, by giving it something to cheer for, rather than stomping on all their hearts and blaming a greedy franchise player for the heartache.

Poile has also handled the mess that is Alexander Radulov in a similarly masterful manner for years, which has finally culminated in his being able to bring in a first-line forward in this most critical of years for no cost at all.  Poile has committed to this season and to the fans and to his star players.  Maybe it won't work out in the end, but it's been a tough hand from day 1 in Nashville.  He's done some great things with that hand, and all of it has been culminating into this one season.

Over the last several years, we've seen a lot of GM's go all out to lose intentionally, and usually in a pretty dramatic fashion. There's a whole lot of incompetent folks at the front of NHL front offices, and the way the NHL has incentivized losing leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  If nothing else, I'd like to see a GM be rewarded for being smart instead of lucky.  And I'd really like to see an NHL GM be rewarded not for going all out to lose and rack up draft picks, but to be rewarded for following a plan and building a team and going all out to win games.

Shea Weber, Duncan Keith, and Todd Bertuzzi

Preface:  I'm reluctant to bring up Todd Bertuzzi, because bringing up Todd Bertuzzi in an argument is pretty much akin to comparing someone to Adolf Hitler, but please, bear with me here.  This post is not campaigning about how long Weber (or anyone else) should or shouldn't be suspended, but is more about the NHL, the way the NHL punishes to injury and not to the action, the role that luck plays within the entire process, and how head injuries are still not being appropriately regarded as "serious" injuries by the league.  

Preface 2: Damn, Yahoo's Nick Cotsonika beat me to the punch, with an excellent post on the Weber thing specifically and a couple of the same points, particularly as it relates to the nature of head injuries and the difficulties inherent to punishing them.  I think my piece reflects a lot more on the relevance of "luck" within the entire process.  In addition, I think there's an interesting point to the contrast between Bertuzzi, who was publicly crucified by the hockey community, and the Weber and Keith incidents.  Each incident was obviously different in some ways and similar in others, but ultimately, what it boils down to is luck: Bertuzzi was unlucky, and Weber and Keith were both fortunate.  Read on to see what I mean.

In case you haven't seen them (or haven't seen them recently) before I talk about them, here's a couple of important videos.

Apr 11, 2012: Shea Weber, angry about the way Zetterberg hit him from behind, tries to punch Henrik Zetterberg in the back of the head, then grabs his head and slams it into the glass.  Weber earns a $2,500 fine.

Mar 21, 2012: Duncan Keith, angry about an earlier hit (which to be fair, was a hit to Keith's head), blatantly ignores playing the puck, and elbows Daniel Sedin in the face:  Keith was suspended 5 games.  

Mar 8, 2004: Todd Bertuzzi, angry about a hit by Moore on Markus Naslund 18 days prior, trails Steve Moore on a play, before sucker punching him in the side/back of the head, and then driving him headfirst into the ice.  Bertuzzi was fined $250,000 and suspended indefinitely (which ended up being 13 regular season games, 7 playoff games, and then was unable to play professionally in any other league during the NHL lockout in 2004-05).  

The NHL has always been very clear in the fact that the severity of injury (if one occurred) plays a very significant role when it comes to the league doling out supplemental discipline.  Obviously, there's some issues with that.  If Steve Moore doesn't break his neck, and merely just has the facial lacerations, Bertuzzi doesn't get suspended for almost 18 months.  Henrik Zetterberg was ok after the Shea Weber incident, but if Detroit sits Z for a practice or sends him to a doctor "as a precaution", does the NHL then allow itself to be baited into giving Weber a suspension where they otherwise wouldn't?  There's a couple points to make here:

- The NHL's safety and discipline processes lend themselves to manipulation

There's a dangerous situation there, with the NHL putting itself in position to be manipulated.  Teams setting guys aside for "precautionary examinations" or tossing words around like "upper body injury" or "concussion-like symptoms" can manipulate the league into coming down harder on opponent teams.  As unlikely as it is (though, in sports, you never know), it also opens up the potential for teams to outright fake or exaggerate an actual injury, particularly when it happens to a bottom-6 guy in their lineup.  

Obviously Detroit prefers to have Zetterberg in the lineup, but what if Shea Weber took his swing at someone with more of a propensity for faking injury, or if he hit a more "disposable" 4th liner, where the team could replace him while the 4th liner sat with "concussion-like systems", and Shea Weber missed games?  That's a net win for Detroit, in a tight series.  Worst of all, that sort of manipulation threatens the integrity of the league, as we start getting into issues of massaging injuries, or outright faking injuries, or begging the question of if a guy is really injured.

- Suspension based on injury is suspension based on luck

What Shea Weber did was reckless and stupid.  I think that's pretty much undeniable.  Slamming Zetterberg's head into the boards got most of the attention, because it's something incredible and dramatic to say.  However, the worse part of what Weber did, in my opinion, was the major league swing he took at the back of Zetterberg's head, which ended up missing.  Weber actually tried to punch a guy as hard as he could in the back of the head and neck.  I don't think it is at all unreasonable to say that, had the punch connected, he certainly could have done some extremely serious damage to Henrik Zetterberg - a concussion, fractured vertebra, or worse.

Take a look at the Bertuzzi video again.  There's two things that Bertuzzi does to Steve Moore.  The first is a sucker punch to the back/side of the head/neck.  The second is driving him down into the ice.  I'm not going to claim to know what damage was done by what action, but one thing we can look at is Steve Moore's body when Bertuzzi punches him.  Look at the way his body goes limp upon the impact of Bertuzzi's fist, and how his hands aren't reaching out to try to break his fall, even before Bertuzzi jumps on his back.  I think its pretty fair to say that the sucker punch alone by Bertuzzi did some significant damage to Moore.  

I also think we can agree that Todd Bertuzzi didn't mean to break Steve Moore's neck.  Yet, the fact of the matter is, he did.  Bertuzzi did something abhorrently reckless and stupid, and he ended a guy's career.  Duncan Keith did something stupid and reckless, but he didn't end Daniel Sedin's career (that we know of).  Matt Cooke did something stupid and reckless, but at the time, we didn't know that he would end Marc Savard's career.  Shea Weber did something stupid and reckless, but he didn't end Henrik Zetterberg's career.  Tie Domi didn't end Scott Niedermayer's career.  Chris Simon did several extremely stupid and reckless things, but he didn't end Ryan Hollweg or Jarko Ruutu's careers.  

We, as a hockey community, set Todd Bertuzzi as this example of someone who did something absolutely unconscionable, that has absolutely no place in the game, an act so vile that we cannot allow such a thing to be considered justifiable in any way, shape, or form.  The reason we set Bertuzzi aside as the "Hitler" of online hockey arguments is not because of the reckless action he committed.  It's because of the fact that he was the one who happened to end a guy's career.  Todd Bertuzzi is the pinnacle of dirty hockey plays, not for the sucker punch, or for the piledriver, but primarily because of bad luck.  

If Steve Moore just has stitches and a concussion, Bertuzzi is still considered a dirty player, but not the way he is today.  If Jarko Ruutu's leg is slashed open and tendons are torn and his career is over, we put Chris Simon on that cross instead.  If Marc Savard's neck is broken instead of getting a "mere" concussion, we put Matt Cooke on that cross.  If Shea Weber connects on that punch to the back of Zetterberg's head, we nail Shea Weber to the cross.  

But he didn't.

Shea Weber could've been Todd Bertuzzi 2.0, but he got lucky.  He was fortunate that Henrik Zetterberg's head was down, looking at the puck, trying to knock it loose.  Should Weber be excused for doing something stupid, reckless, and extremely dangerous just because he lucked out?  Do we give Weber more lattitude because the play happened "in the moment"?  Is the difference not just reckless or malicious behavior, but premeditation?  Obviously, Bertuzzi's attack on Moore had some degree of premeditation (not that Bertuzzi meant to break his neck, but that he certainly meant to rough him up), and I think it's clear that Weber's did not.  But then what about Keith?  

- The NHL's standard operating procedures are inadequate in the "Concussion Era"

Duncan Keith's elbow on Daniel Sedin's face clearly involved some degree of premeditation.  He sees an opportunity, he doesn't even look or move towards the puck going by, and he goes for the cheap shot that he was looking to deliver.  It was just as dirty, just as premeditated, as the Bertuzzi/Moore play, wasn't it?  But due to the nebulous nature of concussions and head injuries, as opposed to the dramatic clarity of "broken neck", Duncan Keith didn't get nailed to a cross either.  

Duncan Keith's hit on Daniel Sedin was widely agreed to be a dirty hit.  However, there was a lot of justification given out both for Keith's cheap shot, as well as for the relatively short suspension that Keith was given.  Many rushed to point out the check that Sedin had previously put on Keith as being justification for Keith coming back with the elbow to the face, or for a reduced suspension for Keith.  I guess you can use that as a mitigating factor, but I'd be curious to hear why Steve Moore's hit on Markus Naslund doesn't mitigate what Todd Bertuzzi did.  

What if it turns out that Daniel Sedin's career really is over?  If that is the case, how is the Duncan Keith play not exactly like the Todd Bertuzzi one?  A premeditated attack on another player for a previous incident, which ended the victim's career.  The Duncan Keith situation happened a couple weeks ago, and Keith is already back from suspension, while Sedin has not returned from his concussion.  It's a small possibility, but it truly is a real possibility, and we don't know if Daniel Sedin has played his last NHL game or not.  

If he does come back, haven't we Keith rewarded for the work of the Vancouver training staff, or for Sedin's body chemistry and a powerful constitution?  We assume that Duncan Keith didn't end Daniel Sedin's career or, just as significantly, severely detract from his abilities upon his return to the ice.  I guess because it's "just a concussion", and that's significantly less meaningful than a "broken neck".  Of course, I'm sure Eric Lindros, Marc Savard, Paul Kariya, and Jeff Beukeboom would have something to say about that.

*     *     *     *

"Mr. Bertuzzi pursued Mr. Moore on the ice, attempting to engage him in a confrontation.  When Mr. Moore declined to engage Mr. Bertuzzi, Mr. Bertuzzi responded by delivering a gloved punch from behind to the side of Mr. Moore's head, rendering him unconscious.  Upon falling to the ice, Mr. Moore suffered additional serious injuries.  We want to make clear that this type of conduct will not be tolerated in the NHL."
- NHL Vice President Clarence Campbell, announcing Bertuzzi's suspension

So what exactly was "this type of conduct" that "will not be tolerated in the NHL"?  Premeditation in conjunction with an intent to injure?  Duncan Keith did that.  A career- or life-threatening injury?  Matt Cooke did that.  Does the injury have to be to a specific place, like the neck, instead of the head?  Shea Weber was pushing his luck on that one.  Maybe the conduct that Clarence Campbell meant was giving the NHL a black eye from a public relations standpoint?  

Or are we simply punishing for rolls of the dice, for simply having the misfortune to have been the one whose number came up, whose slot machine pull came back 7-7-7, and a sufficiently dramatic injury happened, leading to the end of someone's career?  

The Blackhawks apparently forgot common sense, too

Per TSN:

Chicago tendered qualifying offers to several key players this week, including Kris Versteeg, Cam Barker, Ben Eager, Colin Fraser,Aaron Johnson and Troy Brouwer, however the investigation underway is to determine whether the qualifying offers were filed correctly.

If not, there is the remote possibility the qualifying offers could be ruled invalid and the players listed above, conceivably, could be deemed unrestricted free agents because of the blunder.

Seriously? As I mentioned in my last post about the Blackhawk's forgetting their abbacus when they were signing Marian Hossa to a long term deal, the Blackhawks were going to have problems. I basically outlined out it is quite likely that Versteeg and Cam Barker, two important players for the up-and-coming Blackhawks would leave the team one way or another, as casualties of terrible cap management in coming years. Of course, it would help the Blackhawks somewhat, in that they would recieve some sort of compensation for those losses, in the form of draft picks surrendered to sign them (they were supposed to be RFA's) or whatever returns were acquired in a trade. Now, it looks like they may not get anything for them, as Dale Tallon might've accidentally let them walk away:

Chicago general manager Dale Tallon says the qualifying offers were mailed to the players in time, on June 29th, but says because of the July 1 holiday, some of the players didn't receive them in time.

What kind of mistake is that? Not qualifying a potential RFA means letting him become a UFA. Who even uses the snail mail system anymore? Much less uses it for time-sensitive documents on which the fate of multi-million dollar businesses depend? If you were a NHL GM, wouldn't you qualify Barker and Versteeg, at the least, the very first second you were able to do so?

The main stumbling block here may be that the league got the faxes (why didn't you fax the players while you were at it?), but the players never did, and only got the snail mail offer sheets. But as far as I can figure, the players are the important ones. If they didn't get the contracts before the deadline, then they might as well have never got them, and they should be UFA's. Sending the contract/check/whatever after the fact doesn't count for anything, in any business. Sorry, Chicago, but that's the rules, and there's no mulligans in pro sports.

It's easy to say "oh that team has always sucked" or "that team is always really good" or other such things, but its important to remember that oftentimes in sports, you can climb up the mountain in an instant, and you can fall completely off just as fast. The Blackhawks might be a good example of both sides of that, depending how things go for the next two years.

EDIT: Tom Benjamin has posted his take too, and discusses the conflicted feelings the NHLPA may have on the issue. For the NHLPA, while the revenues from a good CHI team are important, I think the issue of individual player's rights in a situation where team management has clearly screwed the pooch should take precedence. Firmly establishing player's rights in the situation of such a mistake is not going to return CHI to the depths of the league's revenue system. Be sure to check it out.

The Chicago Blackhawks left their abbacus at home

The biggest story of the July 1st UFA circus was Marian Hossa quickly coming to a deal with the Chicago Blackhawks. Terms of the deal were 12 years for 62.4M over the life of the contract. That adds up to a 5.2M/year hit against the cap. This leads to one of three possible conclusions: 1) the Chicago Blackhawks can't do simple math, 2) the Chicago Blackhawks don't have access to websites like www.nhlnumbers.com 3) the Chicago Blackhawks have a very interesting idea of how to build a winning team.

This year, 2009-10, the Blackhawks still have some of their best players operating under their entry level contracts, which means they'll be getting a hell of a lot of bang for their buck. Counting Hossa and the newly signed Tomas Kopecky (2 years, 1.2M/yr) and John Madden (1 year, 2.75M/yr), the Chicago Blackhawks one year cap outlook is like such:

48.775M spent on 15 players (11 forwards, 6 defensemen, 2 goaltenders)

UFA players from last year: Tim Brent, Pascal Pelletier, Aaron Johnson

RFA players from last year: Troy Brouwer, Ben Eager, Colin Fraser, Kris Versteeg, Cam Barker, Corey Crawford

I boldfaced the more significant players who have yet to be resigned to the club. Total, to fill the club up to a bare minimum that you need for a game (12 forwards, 6 defensemen, 2 goalies), the Blackhawks really only need to get one more forward under contract. Currently, they have 10.025M with which to play with for the duration of the 2009-10 season. That's certainly doable, and with 10M left, they could easily resign Versteeg and Barker, who are key pieces to the puzzle. Versteeg was a Calder Trophy nominee this year, posting 22-31-53 in 78 games. Cam Barker is a very capable defenseman for Chicago, a former first round pick, and he's just 23 years old.

Its clear that this year, Chicago could ice a very good team for a very good price. One of the most important things in the NHL since the lockout has been getting good bang for the buck. Taking advantage of rookies still being on entry level deals to allow a team to get a expensive free agent, being able to sign players at a discount to play for a contender, no matter how you do it, its important that you do it somehow, if you are to contend in the NHL. Chicago will be in a very good position to do that this year. The problem is going to be the cap dollars committed in the years going forward. In all honestly, I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest to see the next big up and coming team hamstring themselves into becoming Tampa Bay Mid-West. Let's examine the Blackhawks salary structure for 2010-11, where it starts getting really interesting.

35.307M spent on 9 players (5 forwards, 3 defensemen, 1 goalie)

Players needing new contracts, not including those who still needed them from the previous year:

UFA's: John Madden, Adam Burish

RFA's: Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Andrew Ladd, Jack Skille, Duncan Keith, Niklas Hjalmarsson, Jordan Hendry, Joseph Fallon, Antti Niemi

To fill the club up to the minimum you'll need for a game for this year, the Blackhawks would need 7 more forwards, 3 more defensemen, and 1 more goalie. That's 11 more players. To sign all those players, assuming the cap stays the same (and that may be being generous), the team has only about 21.5M to spend to fill those 11 spots. That's pushing it a bit right there, meaning you'll need some real bargains.

But wait, remember all those players I boldfaced? Kris Versteeg and Cam Barker need new deals this offseason, and franchise stars Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, and Duncan Keith all need them the next year. Either of Kane or Toews will easily command 5M/yr, and that would probably be below market value. Even signing one of those two for 5M/yr would push the cap situation to 16.5M to sign 10 players. If you sign both of Kane and Toews to the same deal, its 11.5M to sign 9 players. And that's being generous in that the cap doesn't go down at all, and that those two would take discounted contracts on their first chance to earn big money. If they each want 6M, you're down to 9.5M to sign 9 players. That means almost every replacement would have to be making near league minimums.

This is to say nothing of what it would to in terms of harm to the team itself and the fanbase to let the other players (Keith, Barker, and Versteeg) go, in order to make the numbers work with the cap. Obviously, at least a couple of these top 5 have to be on the way out, and its very hard to see either of Toews or Kane hitting the road. Frankly, there's no reason either one should have to be forced out to be replaced with Marian Hossa. If neither of them are going, it comes back to the Versteeg/Keith/Barker choice again, and of those three, probably one can be kept while filling out the rest of the roster, maybe 2. Of those three, and given the lack of quality defense (Campbell is a forward playing defense, remember, leaving Seabrook as the only good defenseman not listed here), Keith should be the third to stay, and Versteeg and Barker should be given walking papers.

That said, we run into the timing issue again. Versteeg and Barker are both able to be resigned this year, and this year is when they have cap space to spend on those players. Will Chicago be able to plan ahead enough to let these two walk, for the future good of the franchise? Or will they sign them and get into a real nasty situation next year when you have to face the idea of losing one of the boy wonders to be replaced with someone older who doesn't really bring anything more to the table? It's a nasty nasty situation the Blackhawks have gotten themselves into, and frankly, I don't think they'll be good enough to manuever out of it effectively, unless they start sinking money into a time machine.