By Paul M. Banks
The Chicago Blackhawks should make the official announcement tomorrow at 2pm CT. The team has called a press conference to make a “special hockey operations announcement”. The announcement and press conference will be carried live on chicago blackhawks.com Although the signings will not be made official until tomorrow, it is pretty well known in most circles close to the team that the big news is the signing of their three biggest stars. Given the issues they have and will have in the next couple of years concerning cap room, it is quite an achievement that they have done enough salary shuffling in order to sign
1.) the player with the best plus/minus on the season they made their run to the Western Conference Finals/best defenseman (Duncan Keith)
2.) top scorer and face of the franchise (Patrick Kane)
3.) Team captain and star forward (Jonathan Toews).
Word is Kane and Toews re-signed for identical 5 year, $31 million deals. I guess the efficiency is the financial shell game can be partially attributed to the team’s GM Stan Bowman (son of immortal hockey legend Scotty). When they demoted then GM Dale Tallon this summer, they replaced with him someone who possessed a strong economics background. Hockey is always a business, and during this deepest of recessions, money matters more than ever.