It's really just the Seabrook contract.
He got out of the Hossa and Kruger contracts. Murphy is starting to play. Toews is almost living up to his contract again. He's worth a $9mn player. Kane is great. Keith's contract isn't terrible. The Panarin / Saad trade was bad ... but Saad is playing well enough. Who knows? Panarin could be back next year. Anisimov has a moveable contract.
Crow's deal is over in 2020. The Bickell contract was painful but you can't predict MS.
Let's say the Hawks make playoffs this year. That means next year looks better AND last year was our only really bad year. The farm system feels replenished.
If you really look at our roster / farm system / contracts, it's Seabrook's deal that's the BIG MISTAKE. You take his contract off the roster, Stan's in good shape to sign a legitimate top forward and DMen this summer ... with money to re sign Cat and Strome next summer.
It really comes down to Seabrook's contract.
Dude he only had ONE year of Bickel to get rid of and gave away TT as a sweetener? If that is not a HUGE MISTAKE then I don’t know what it is. People can twist it and turn it how they want but that was ridiculous from day one and go see the trade in the main board everyone was mind boggled by that trade.
Then came the Danault which was also very stupid from day 1, I think that was a big mistake too as you had a guy that is still getting paid very little performing very well for his role as a legit shut down third line centre.
Then you have Panarin for Saad? This is not big? I am not even gonna get into this one.
The sharp trade was idiotic giving up Johns too?
The Hammer trade was just dumb, I don’t see what people see in Murphy, I don’t get it personally, he might be a little better than the rest of the young D in the back end but that’s not saying much as the bar is very low. Like I said before he’s a good 5-6 guy on a playoff team and this is 2 years into his contract and he is overpaid. I would rather take Hammer at 5Mill than Murphy at 4.
Seabrook is just a mistake that leaves a team handicapped for more than half a decade. Most teams have 80M to play with but the Hawks have 7 M less.
The mistakes are endless my friend, this is not to mention a bunch of moves that he had to fix as he went on and patch them up. These moves are why the team is garbage now. Imagine this team with TT/Panarin/Danault right now, yes it would be much better that’s not even negotiable, even Hammer. I guess I just see things differently.