(670 The Score) A year ago, the Blackhawks boasted the best goalie tandem in the NHL.
Robin Lehner talked big and played bigger in the crease, making his one-year, $5-million prove-it deal look like a bargain. Corey Crawford returned for his 13th season with an expiring contract and familiar questions about his health – but few about his skills. Together, Lehner and Crawford kept the Hawks competitive early and gave the team a unique opportunity to use last season as a chance to decide which elite goaltender to keep.
And then there were none.
Both goalies have exited, leaving the Hawks' net as empty as their explanations for not making better use of their assets.
The Hawks traded Lehner to the Golden Knights at the deadline last February, after contract extension talks stalled, for unproven backup goalie Malcolm Subban – the heir apparent – a prospect and a second-round draft pick. As for Crawford, he now plays for the Devils after Hawks general manager Stan Bowman decided to move on without the guy as responsible as any player for the team's last two Stanley Cups.
Crawford told reporters he was “devastated” by Bowman’s decision.
Dumbfounded describes many hockey observers like me. Baffled. Bewildered. Confused. Pick an adjective. At 35, Crawford perhaps carries more durability concerns than earlier in his career but reminded everybody during his most recent playoff excellence how he still can control games. Crow still can stand on his head, as they say.
Nonetheless, the Hawks only offered Crawford a one-year deal worth around $3 million and weren’t interested in negotiating, according to a source. After Crawford signed a two-year deal for $7.8 million with the Devils, he acknowledged feeling shocked by Bowman’s actions. A source who had spoken to Crawford suggested he would've signed a two-year deal worth $6 million, but Bowman seemed committed to developing Subban, Collin Delia and Kevin Lankinen -- committed to going young.
Apparently, not even the goalie who made so many saves over 52 playoff victories for the Hawks could stop the youth movement finally arriving at 1901 W. Madison.
By the time the Hawks traded $6 million-a-year forward Brandon Saad to the Avalanche in a four-player trade Saturday evening that strangely included no top prospects in return, little doubt remained. The organization’s one goal had become rebuilding. The Hawks have made next season about evaluation with no plans for celebration. The team’s roster suddenly looks much closer to being the worst in the Western Conference than the best.
No wonder captain Jonathan Toews sounded so ticked off in comments to the Athletic.
“A lot of this comes as a shock because it’s a completely different direction than we expected,’’ Toews told Mark Lazerus.
Hawks players and fans have every reason to expect more, even if nobody should be as shocked as Toews was. The organization has conditioned us to think big and aim high. Over the past decade, the Hawks repeatedly have told Chicago to expect a certain standard of excellence, so they should accept being held accountable when they fall short. And – pandemic-created postseason berth aside – they keep falling.
It has been five long years since the Hawks have truly had a team capable of winning the Cup. It was June 23, 2017, when Bowman defied hockey logic by trading dependable defenseman Niklas Hjalmarsson to the Coyotes for Connor Murphy and Laurent Dauphin, a move that perhaps signaled the beginning of the end.
The Hawks said goodbye to stability on and off the ice that day. The Hawks lost their most defensive defenseman and alienated their legendary coach with one move. Seventeen months later, they fired coach Joel Quenneville, who was against the deal and struggled winning with the roster Bowman assembled. Jeremy Colliton, hired at 33 to replace Quenneville, still has yet to earn the total respect of the team’s veteran core. In retrospect, the Hawks firing team president John McDonough on April 27 shouldn’t have come as a shocker either.
McDonough, sources said, never fully endorsed the rebuild the Hawks appear to be embracing by shedding Crawford, trading Saad and failing to make qualifying offers to veterans Drake Caggiula and Slater Koekkoek – who had a solid postseason. McDonough has been unavailable for comment since interim president Danny Wirtz replaced him, silence that speaks volumes. The more visible Danny Wirtz was in the postseason, the more likely it appeared the Hawks will remove the interim label instead of hiring a new hockey guy as team president.
Every pro sports franchise faces the inevitable dilemma of knowing the right time to rebuild. Frankly, the Hawks could've pivoted in that direction a couple years ago and it might have been easier to justify than it seems now. Now, the career clock on Toews, Patrick Kane and Duncan Keith is ticking louder than ever.
All three demonstrated against the Oilers and Golden Knights in August that they still can play at a high level. Toews, 32, turned back the clock and dominated Game 1 against the Oilers. Kane, who turns 32 in November, remains as dangerous as any NHL scorer. Keith, even at 37, gives the Hawks a mentor for all the younger defensemen in the system as well as a steadying force on the blue line.
But it’s tough to embark on an ambitious roster overhaul with Toews and Kane making $10.5 million a year through 2023 with no-movement clauses. Keith, who carries a $5.5-million salary cap hit through 2023, enjoys the same veto power. All three expect to begin every season expecting to end it in the playoffs. And more significantly, the presence of all three gives Bowman three stars to build a playoff-caliber roster around – not necessarily a compelling reason to tear it apart.
The presence of 35-year-old Brent Seabrook, with four years and $27.5 million left on the albatross of an eight-year extension that Bowman signed him to in 2015, further complicates the situation. And, yes, Seabrook’s contract also contains a no-movement clause. Can a youth movement include so many hockey graybeards?
Maybe one of the Hawks’ core four players would waive the no-movement rights now – though Toews sounded uninterested in doing so. Maybe Toews or Kane will go to chairman Rocky Wirtz, who had to approve all of this, and demand answers or changes. Maybe if the United Center stays empty next season due to COVID-19, it will mitigate how mutinous the fan base becomes. Or maybe the youth movement underscores why we love the randomness of hockey and the Hawks figure out how to successfully incorporate an untested goalie with overwhelmed defensemen and a few explosive offensive playmakers.
We only know this: Whatever happens falls at the feet of Bowman, whom the Hawks essentially chose when they dumped Quenneville. They easily could've kept the coach and fired the general manager. They didn’t. Give Bowman credit for drafting potential difference-makers such as Alex DeBrincat and Kirby Dach and mining the international market for Dominik Kubalik, but assign him blame for questionable trades since 2017 – like Henri Jokiharju for Alex Nylander and the costly Hjalmarsson miss.
Bowman also benefits from his sport’s place in the market he works. No other general manager in town operates under less media and fan scrutiny, easing external pressure that often spur change in more rapid hockey cities where sports talkers don’t need an excuse to discuss the sport and the coverage includes more force than finesse. Not here.
Here, Chicago loves the Hawks when they’re winning three Cups in five years but collectively tends to shrug when things head in the opposite direction – the one they appear headed toward after a revealing weekend.
David Haugh is the co-host of the Mully & Haugh Show from 5-9 a.m. weekdays on 670 The Score. Click here to listen. Follow him on Twitter @DavidHaugh.