The Real Story Of The Great Salary Cull of 2010

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I don't think I've ever heard anything stupider, more mis-applied, or more ignorant than the concept that the Hawks have just finished up a firesale that mirrored the infamous version the Florida Marlins of 1997 executed.

Those Marlins mortgaged their entire future to accumulate as many big money stars as possible, rode them to a title, and then chose to immediately sell every single piece they could to avoid having to foot the salary bill for another season, guaranteeing a long rebuilding process that would keep the team out of contention for years.

The 2010 Chicago Blackhawks patiently developed an unheard collection of talent, wisely (for the most part) spent to add pieces to the tremendous young core as it came into its own, rode them to a title, strategically decided which players were key core components moving forward, were forced only by the league's salary cap rules to shed the complimentary pieces, and in doing so secured the talent that should help keep the team in title contention for the foreseeable future.


The fact that anyone would confuse those two storylines above is evidence of severe retardation. The Great Salary Cull of 2010 was a work of absolute genius coming and going. Period, end of story. As a Hawks fan, you should feel great about what got us here and you should feel great about where we're going from here. This was genius at work - we've already enjoyed some of the fruits and we'll most definitely enjoy more in the future.

Despite the difficulties of watching many of our Cup heroes leave this summer, it was most definitely genius that caused it to happen. Dale Tallon, the Bowmans, and a number of other great front office hockey minds assembled such an absurd array of talent that to keep it together this season would have meant a cap number of over $72M!

Yep, just adding up the 2010-2011 salaries of all of the guys who saw action in the playoffs, you get a cap number that is more than $12M over the cap. And that's assuming Boynton signs for the league minimum of $500k this year, ignores Kimmy Johnsson, who made $4.8M last year and probably is in line for at least $2-3M this year, and doesn't factor in the $4.1M of cap bonuses the Hawks are on the hook for this season.

The Hawks front office deserves endless accolades for getting a team with a market value of $70-$80M to fit into a cap that stood at $56M last year. Especially because only two of the players on the team were significantly overpaid. Campbell shouldn't be making more than $5M (instead of his $7.142M cap hit) and Huet, even at the time of his signing, shouldn't have gotten more than $3M (instead of his $5.625M cap hit). Throw in Sopel being a bit overpaid at $2.333M (instead of maybe 1.2ish?) and we're still only talking $5M or so in bad cap use. With the bonuses, that's still a team that's legitimately worth $70M, easy.

Oh, and there's that little thing about winning the first Stanley Cup in almost half a century to consider. Yep, all told, I'd say that Tallon, the Bowmans, and their colleagues did a freakin wonderful job collecting so much talent that they were laughably over the NHL Salary Cap limit when all was said and done. You should view this forced exodus, while clearly a bummer, as a big giant star on the homework assignments of the Hawks' front office.


So these guys were geniuses for putting us in this position - but did they really make all the right moves in responding to it? Well, only time will really tell. Maybe they let go of a superstar or kept a bust. Maybe these prospects they traded for won't ever develop. Maybe the guys who they created roster space for don't step up. Maybe the players they select with all their draft picks amount to nothing.

But from where we're sitting right now, I think the Bowmans have done a great job this summer. First off, as I'll detail in a post to come, they made the exact right choices as to who to keep around as the core. I loved a lot of the guys who left town this summer, but I wouldn't have chosen to keep any of them over the ones the Hawks did.

Toews, Sharp, Bolland, Kane, Hossa, Keith, Seabrook, Campbell and the Hammer form a group of players that could contend for the Cup for the next decade. This is a group that will dominate in all three zones, on all three units, in every aspect of the game. They are young, committed, and hungry. They are experienced, proven, and reliable. As long as you can look out onto the ice and see a collection of players like that, as a fan you've got to feel amazing about your hockey club.

I want to stress that again - with the above players skating for the Hawks next year, we should be just fine. You hear a lot of snide comments about the Hawks not having anyone left next year - retarded. I'm not sure there are more than 2-3 teams that wouldn't trade their entire roster for the Hawks' core. This club, while certainly facing some growing pains, will be a Cup favorite and a real power, if, like every one else, they can stay healthy.

Second, it sounds like the Hawks really loaded up on all levels of prospects - from draft picks to NHL-ready types, to guys a year or two away. The pipeline which produced so many of the players we saw skate with the Cup last year (or were used to acquire so many of those players) now seems to be restocked to do it all over again.

Equally important, the Hawks are in a place to capitalize on this next wave. They've managed to open up a number of roster spots on the big league club while still keeping more than enough talent around to allow the youngsters to develop as complimentary pieces without much pressure.

As the Hawks learned the hard way over the past decade, when your big league club is devoid of any real talent, it's not easy to bring up prospects and turn them into high-impact NHLers. But you bring a guy up and let him ride shotgun with Toews and Kane? You let him do the dirty work for Sharp and Hossa? You let him kill penalties next to The Hammer? You let him learn to be a shutdown forward skating with Bolland?

That is how you seamlessly transition from one set of unproven complimentary pieces to another. And let's not forget, that's all the Hawks have gotten rid of this summer. Aside Madden, Sopel and Huet, no one they let go of was anything before the 07-08 breakout year. Only put next to supreme talent in a great system and allowed the time to develop, did the likes of Buff, Versteeg, Ladd, Eager, Burish, Fraser, and Niemi become the players we know today.

So why shouldn't we be confident that the next batch of Hawks prospects will similarly emerge? Bickell, Skille, Dowell, Stalberg, Hendry, Crawford, Leddy, Beach, Vishnevskiy, Lalonde, Makarov, and Toivonen all carry the same pedigrees, the same high expectations of our now departed Cup winners.

In fact, these guys probably are much more highly anticipated then what we had in that group above. Don't forget that a lot of these guys we just got rid of, if not all of them, were brought in to little fanfare. Mid to late round picks, unheralded trades, undrafted free agents. But the Hawks organization molded them into winners, just as I have faith they'll do with the next generation.


I can't guarantee everything the Bowmans did this summer was perfect. But I can promise you that we're only in this spot because of the great work they and Tallon did before. Mistakes didn't get us here, being incredibly good at their job of accumulating talent did. And we've got the freaking Cup to prove it!

And I can tell you that I love the core group they've committed to. And that the Hawks front office has earned your benefit of the doubt in terms of the prospects they've brought in and the guys they'll give time to next season. You shouldn't be feeling uneasy about the Cup defense - you should know that this organization is stocked with the core talent to win it and have proven they know how to fold the necessary complimentary pieces into the mix.

So the next idiot you hear reference the Florida Marlins or doubt what kind of team we'll return next year, just smile and nod. And then when they go to walk away, cross check them square in the back. "O'Doyle rules!"