What if? Bill Wirtz lives until the 2012-13 lockout

[Kaners Bald Spot]

Most Hawks fans don't want to contemplate this, but what if Bill Wirtz doesn't pass away until November 2012? Do the Hawks ever win the cup in 2010? If they do, does the team get broken up and pawned off similarly to the 1997 Marlins? Where do Marian Hossa and Brian Campbell sign instead, because you know it isn't with the Hawks at that point.

Click to read more...

 

[feffan]

No Cup in 2010. No Cup at all I say. They wouldn´t have gotten the front office, complimentary players and so to win it. And they would probably when Keith, Toews and Kane where up for money contracts have been traded like the 90´s Blackhawks. The heartbreak when Roenick was traded is still felt here...

 

[tony d]

Bill Wirtz really set that team back a lot didn't he? Got to think if he wasn't such a poor owner that some of those teams in the early 90's could have won a Cup.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

i don't know anything about bill wirtz other than his reputation, so i don't know how much money he had, if his ability to spend changed from the early 90s to the late 90s/early 2000s.

but from where i sit, he spent a lot of money in that '92-'96 period, before they let roenick and belfour go. they brought in a lot of vets, after hollowing out the expensive old core of savard, wilson, murray. so i think sure we'd like them to retain larmer, but i kind of see that as pulford doing a cost-benefit analysis and determining that he didn't want to invest in an older, declining player commanding the kind of money larmer would be commanding. i think you could also argue that he saw the writing on the wall in the late 90s for his core and thought he was better off cutting roenick and belfour loose and rebuild around hackett, amonte, daze, zhamnov, instead of treading water with a team that was never going to win it.

it would be consistent with the eventual chelios trade: "you can retire a hawk or we can trade you. but we're not bringing you back at your age and that money."

if i'm right, then maybe the 2010 is the same, except instead of signing hossa to that big deal they bring back havlat. and no campbell, but the savings from letting khabibulin might have conceivably gone to signing a cheaper defenseman. it's not like the teams of bill wirtz's lifetime were bottom of the barrel-bankrupt pocklington-type rosters. coming out of the lockout, they signed khabibulin, aucoin, and lapointe. all sorts of high priced stars passed through the crappy amonte/zhamnov/thibault years: gilmour, housley, fleury, coffey. i think philosophically wirtz was just against big, longterm max-type deals, like amonte was due for when they let him walk (and, of course he was an old coot who was allergic to catering to fans).