Wreck Of The Hesperus, The Word "Cap" Has To Be Illegal Here
The Hawks get their ass whooped in South Florida, and we don't want to hear about the salary cap for years,
Sector 1901 - Cue Jasper
As it's a free Monday, for anyone new around here the top section is when I do Hawks stuff. Today it's starting with a wrap on the West Side Hockey Club getting their ass rubbed in the moonshine by the defending champs.
The hope was that the Hawks might be able to catch the Panthers in their midseason, can't-locate-a-fuck phase. That with so many players slotted for the 4 Nations, with the entire roster kind of pacing themselves for the playoffs, maybe there was a chance this would be a contest the Cats were just looking to get through before the fun stuff.
It very much was not.
The Hawks got utterly paddled for the opening 20, were lucky that the Panthers just wanted to play with their food for the middle 20, and then were put out of their misery within the first few minutes of the last 20. Florida was locked in for this one, perhaps sensing a game when they would only have to be in top gear for no more than half of to secure two points. It happens when a team is the gum stuck on the league's shoe.
The Panthers are obviously a nightmare matchup for the Hawks. Not only because of the talent discrepancy, which is canyonesque, but because of style. There is no fiercer forecheck than Florida's--it has been the bedrock of two runs to the Final and one parade, after all--and the Hawks just aren't built to withstand that kind of thing with the defense they are currently icing.
That doesn't mean the Hawks didn't help in their own downfall. As I said on BlueSky, this was always going to resemble a bloodbath if the Panthers were at all interested. But when the Hawks dress all of Connor Murphy (fresh off injury), T.J. Brodie, Alec Martinez, and the increasingly static Alex Vlasic (his recent play may require a deeper dive soon because it's gone from a minor quibble to somewhat worrying), the Hawks provided Florida a stationary target. That wasn't helped by Louis Crevier's injury, not that he's all that swift, either. Nor is Ethan Del Mastro that gifted with the puck, but he can at least move more than what was out there. It was a strange lineup choice, let's say.
It was clear that the Hawks had something of a plan to try and just flip and bank pucks behind the on-rush, hoping to hit some streaking forwards in the neutral zone, but their defense simply could not generate the time and space necessary to do so. Which meant that their weak-ass attempts were just easily picked off by pinching d-men at the line, causing further cycles and turnovers from the Hawks. Then it would just all repeat itself.
The Hawks were able to somewhat stem the tide in the 2nd by having their wingers just dig in along the boards, deal with the pinching d-men giving them an aggressive prostate exam and try to either just shovel the puck out or bump the puck backwards to an advancing teammate facing the right way. But a team as limited as the Hawks can only do that for so long. Which is what happened in the 3rd.
It's not going to matter this season, as Kyle From Chicago has made it clear he already hates Kevin Korchinski. But the Hawks are going to have to figure out which d-men can survive under this kind of assault, because the Panthers aren't the only ones who are going to do it. Do Crevier, Del Mastro, Allan, and Vlasic really have the puck skills to make it through this kind of thing? Will they get just a half-step quicker when they become accustomed to NHL speed? Are Korch, Levshunov, and Sam Rinzel the hopes in the organization for this kind of thing? Do the Hawks even know how to develop that? Do they know they need to? We'll find out on the next episode.
Let's clean up the rest:
So let's get to the big talking point, or at least what people want to make the big talking point. Yeah, this isn't good enough from Connor Bedard:
However, everyone should know by now that Mark Messier, and anyone parroting his thoughts on ABC, is a dope. There may never come a time when Bedard can outmuscle a player like Sam Reinhart. He's got what, 30 pounds on Bedard? If that makes you wonder if Bedard can stick at center long-term, that is not something I can stop you from. His only hope is that in the future he'll sniff this out a little quicker and just gets in better position.
But the idea that Bedard should be benched or lose his power play time, get fucked. This kid is already staring into the abyss most nights. Now people want to add time in the doghouse to that?
If Hawks fans want something to worry about, it's that Bedard spent the whole afternoon getting stuffed by Sasha Barkov. That happens to a lot of guys, because Barkov is probably the best 200-foot player in the league. But if Bedard is going to be in that echelon, he's going to have to figure out how to not get his brains turned into plasma in by the league's best on the road when he sees them. Some of that is better teammates, for sure. But not all. Here's some sobering reading. In two games against Barkov, Bedard has an xG% of 1. That's uno. That's "Waddya think the temperature is?" from Planes, Trains, And Automobiles.
Other xG% marks this season against some of the league's best:
Mathew Barzal: 37%
Leon Draisaitl: 14%
Elias Petterssen: 27%
Adam Fantilli: 13% (obviously not among the league's best but a worthwhile comparison given their draft positions)
Anthony Cirelli: 23%
Brayden Point: 10%
Jack Eichel: 37%
J.T. Miller: 39%
Mark Scheifele: 0 (yep, really).
This is an imperfect measure, to be sure. And funny enough, Bedard is actually in the black against Nathan MacKinnon, likely the top tier center he'll see most in his career, at least the early part, because he's in the division. MacKinnon and the Avs play a far more open style than most, and that suits Bedard.
Bottom line, Bedard needs help. At some point however, he needs to start looking the very best in the eye more often if he plans on being one of them. It's the Flair Corollary, to put it one way.
Let's worry about another pillar. Alex Vlasic looks like he's carrying something. Or he'd better be, to settle our nerves. His skating lacks jump, his decision-making more so, and he hasn't really been a factor for a while now. He's been slow to react in his own zone, late in coverage, and the ya-ha nature we saw earlier in the season that threatened to put him in the actual puck-mover category has completely disappeared.
As said before, development isn't linear, and Vlasic still has many miles to go before he's a finished product. This might just be one of those blips, especially now that he would be marked out on any opponent's scouting report as one of the few Hawks they have to be aware of. He'll get a break soon enough, as shockingly he didn't make Team USA, which was laughably suggested by some local observers earlier this eason.
Anders Sorensen didn't help in another way, to go along with his lineup choices. It's a minor thing when the team was so outplayed anyway, but when the game is merely 1-1 and the Hawks are getting mauled in the 1st, taking any sort of risk to put the Panthers back on the power play was very much not worth a marginal challenge that was unlikely to net the Hawks anything. Just because Mrazek couldn't hold his crease for all the free beer in the world doesn't mean he was going to get an interference call.
In the second period, Brodie attempted a spin-o-rama at center ice to try and get out of traffic. You'll get one guess to figure out how that went.
All right, that's enough of that.
The Word "Cap" Needs To Be Illegal Around Here
So it became official that the NHL's salary cap is going to explode over the next three years, going to $95.5 million next season, to $1o4m, to $113m. Sadly, because the Hawks have weaponized the cap crunch of a decade ago (which came with the small side benefit of three Cups but really, who gives a fuck about that?) to make their fans absolutely terrified of it, it generates things like this in The Athletic.
The overarching thing Hawks fans should remember is that no fan, no exec, and no media member should ever worry about the salary cap until the Hawks actually win a playoff series. Fuck that, until the Hawks make the playoffs. Actually, fuck that. Until they compete for a playoff spot. You know what? Fuck that even. Until they can see a playoff spot without requiring the Hubble telescope.
First off, what is this fear of Connor Bedard's second contract? Should he sign an extension this summer, and one would have to think the Hawks will be desperate for that kind of good news, this isn't some revolutionary player coming off eye-popping numbers for his second season. He's really good, but he's not unique. Not yet, anyway. He's not getting McDavid numbers, just calm the fuck down with that shit.
Connor McDavid, seven years ago, signed for 15 percent of the cap off his rookie deal, but he was coming off consecutive 100-point seasons. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Nathan MacKinnon signed for just $6M per season off his rookie deal, when he was coming off a 52-point season. Jack Eichel signed for $10M per year off his rookie deal off a 64-point season. That's probably an accurate comp. That was about 12 percent of the cap.
So equivalently, 12% of of the 2026-2027 cap, when Bedard's extension would kick in, would be $12.4 million. That sounds like more than enough for Bedard right now, doesn't it? If Bedard wants to wait and bet on himself during his third season to really bust out and get some 15% of the cap, great. Who gives a shit?
The reason no one should give a fuck is because of nonsense like this:
"With a slew of high-potential first-round picks coming up through the system, the Blackhawks’ long-term cap picture could start getting crowded, even with the rising cap. If players such as Frank Nazar, Kevin Korchinski, Artyom Levshunov, Oliver Moore, Sam Rinzel, Sacha Boisvert, Marek Vanacker and whomever the Blackhawks take at the top of this draft all become the players Chicago hopes they become, they’ll all be due big raises in their second contracts, too."
Let's be clear, if that were to happen–if the Hawks have already drafted seven actual difference makers and maybe an eighth come June--that would mean Kyle From Chicago has the greatest hit rate on draftees in the league currently. Maybe in recent history. What basis is there to think that's even a remote possibility?
Look around the league. How many Panthers draft picks are on their current roster, and are true difference-makers? Real, live top six players or top two pairing players? Y'know, the team with the most recent rings? That would be two, three if you want to count Anton Lundell on the third line (Kulikov doesn't count because he left and came back).
Let's keep going. The Leafs are at five true difference-makers (Matthews, Marner, Karlsson, Rielly, Woll, and we'll see about Woll).That also spans over multiple GMs.
The Canes? Six difference-makers. The Devils? Five difference-makers. The Caps have five actual difference-makers. Edmonton has six. Vegas is their own thing. The Jets have six to seven, probably the most on this list, and those were accumulated 13 years. The Stars seem to be the model for the Hawks, and they do have five that are real pieces.
But hey, the Sabres have a lot of draft picks on the roster. So do the Wings. So does UHC. Are they worried about the rising cap?
To reiterate, there is no GM who has assembled seven or eight important players, say a top six and two to three d-men on the top four, in the span of four drafts. It doesn't ever happen. Kyle From Chicago only has one hit on the roster, and that's the generational #1 overall pick that landed on him. Everyone can worry about paying all these other picks when any of them prove they're worth it, and not a second beforehand. The Hawks are galaxies from that.
Normally, this is where I would do some Premier League stuff on Mondays. But there may be a change of gear soon. I'm going to start doing Premier League pieces at Fansided. I know, I know. Believe me, I know what that is. But it's probably better for the portfolio if I do the soccer stuff on a website I can point to, at least for a little bit. Don't worry, I'll post links here as soon as I start so you can still get them. And I'll try and fill the space with more NHL-wide and Chicago sports stuff. We'll see how it goes. The way things are going, the Premier League bits may return here in a matter of days or weeks. I'm just trying to figure it all out just like you.
