A little more than three months remain until the Blackhawks step on the ice at Prague’s O2 Arena to launch their 2019-20 season against the Flyers.
Depending on how you view the Hawks’ moves so far this summer, you’re either giddy with anticipation and the first game feels like a lifetime away or there’s no reason to rush to get on with another mediocre season.
Chances are, the Hawks will fare somewhere in the middle. But make no mistake, the Hawks are better than they were when last season ended. The question is how much better. The start of NHL free agency Monday did little to provide an answer.
The Hawks signed Ryan Carpenter, a fourth-line center who had some success with the Golden Knights the last couple of years but was a healthy scratch during their seven-game first-round loss to the Sharks in April.
Carpenter, 28, will receive $3 million over three years and fit into a bottom-six role as a capable faceoff man who isn’t likely to add much scoring. He has 37 points (16 goals, 21 assists) in 132 career games with the Sharks and Golden Knights, including five goals and 13 assists in 68 games last season.
The surprise of the day came when goaltender Robin Lehner agreed to a one-year deal worth $5 million. That’s a signal that either the Hawks weren’t comfortable going into the season with Collin Delia as Corey Crawford’s backup or that they weren’t comfortable Crawford could stay healthy all season. Crawford has one year left on a deal with a $6 million cap hit.
“We’re in a good position with the cap,” general manager Stan Bowman said. “We have a pretty full roster right now, whether we start camp or if we tweak a few things.
“We’ve come a long way in the last month. If you look at where we were a month ago and where we are today, we’re a much, much better team and we’re well-positioned to have a good season.”
Lehner, 27, had a breakout season in 2018-19, when he won a career-high 25 games while posting a 2.13 goals-against average and a .930 save percentage for the Islanders. He had six shutouts and was named a finalist for the Vezina Trophy.
Off the ice, Lehner was awarded the Masterton Trophy given to a player who best exemplifies “perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to ice hockey” for overcoming his battles with mental illness and substance abuse. At the NHL awards ceremony, he gave a stunning speech in which he said, “I’m not ashamed to say I’m mentally ill, but that doesn’t mean mentally weak.”
The Hawks didn’t bring in any other new players Monday, and that’s just fine with Bowman. He hasn’t sat idly by the last couple of weeks waiting to hand out huge deals to the few players whose contracts happened to be up.
Instead, Bowman used the trade market to address some of the issues that have kept the Hawks from the postseason two years in a row. The three main players acquired in the trades — defensemen Olli Maatta and Calvin de Haan and former Hawks forward Andrew Shaw — are the ones to focus on when assessing this offseason.
“Just signing players randomly because they’re good players on other teams wasn’t the right approach,” Bowman said. “We tried to take a strategic approach shoring up areas of concern, and I think we’ve been able to do that.”
While none of those players is a game-changer, they’re all established NHL players on reasonable contracts not lasting more than three years. Collectively, they’ll make about $12 million this season.
Considering that 34-year-old forward Joe Pavelski got $21 million over three years from the Stars on Monday and bottom-six forward Brandon Tanev snared a six-year, $21 million deal from the Penguins, it’s easy to see why Bowman preferred the cost certainty of trades to the bidding war of the free-agent market.
For anyone who still thinks Bowman made a mistake two years ago by trading Artemi Panarin to the Blue Jackets for a deal centered around Brandon Saad, well, you could be right. But the fact is Bowman anticipated not being able to re-sign Panarin when he became a free agent this year, and that holds true.
Panarin signed a seven-year, $81.5 million deal with the Rangers, leaving the Blue Jackets with nothing to show for the deal while the Hawks have two more years of Saad, who remains a valuable forward even if he’s maddeningly inconsistent.
The Hawks’ Central Division rivals didn’t stand pat Monday. The Stars signed Corey Perry to a one-year deal in addition to Pavelski. The Wild signed Mats Zuccarello and former Hawks forward Ryan Hartman, while the Predators agreed to a seven-year, $56 million deal with forward Matt Duchene.
The Hawks also announced they re-signed center David Kampf to a two-year extension that carries a $1 million cap hit. The Hawks have a little more than $1 million in cap space remaining, according to capfriendly.com, but a chunk of that is expected to go to restricted free agent Brendan Perlini.
The signing of Lehner further reduces the possibility the Hawks will add center Ryan Dzingel, who scored 26 goals with the Senators and Blue Jackets last season and at 27 is entering his prime. Even if the Hawks were to trade Artem Anisimov, whose no-trade clause expired Monday, they would have only about $5.5 million in cap space.
“We got two high-end goaltenders and we’ve improved our defense. We’ve made changes up front,” Bowman said. “So we’re a different team, and I’m very optimistic for where we’re headed.”
