yeah...thinking that reichel's shit year came at the best time for the club - his contract year. not sure what spiel his agent will roll out to try and get his client 2+ million/per. the thing is - the cap (ceiling & floor) is going up by some $4 million and the club HAS to spend just to get to the floor, which will be apprx. $65 million.

easy for me to spend and point at can't-miss free agents, but i'd really like to see them pry reinhart out of florida and my D free agent is RD brett pesce of carolina.

again, reinhart has stated that he wants to stay in florida and him and other florida star players have gone on record as saying that they would sign cap-friendly contracts to keep the florida core intact. reinhart is currently at $6.5 million per year. offering him $9.5-$10 million per year would certainly rewrite that script. what makes him the perfect fit is: can play C or RW/captain material/PP effectiveness/rarely injured. bedard and kurashev love to play the wings on the PP, reinhart is lethal in front of the net. sign this guy 5 times over.

as far as pesce, he's on $4 million (same as connor murphy). the club has a need for RD and he's easily a top 4 D-man...a definite upgrade over murphy at RD. the club gets stronger with pesce over murphy as a top 4 d-man on the depth chart...though murphy sticks out like a sore thumb getting $4 million per as a 5th/6th d-man. despite that, the hawks can afford that and murphy would be a fairly good 5th/6th d-man on any roster. i'd give pesce $6 million for 4 years. he'll be there when this club makes the playoffs - and pesce will play a big part in getting there.

hawks can pair:

vlasic-jones
korchinski-pesce
kaiser-murphy

i'm sure the club has all types of contingency plans in case of this or that. if i was the GM, i'd focus on reinhart and pesce...maybe they have their sights on others.

real good news for all with vlasic.

just extended...6 years/$27.6 mil...$4.6 mil per. great for all, sounds like it's better for the fans and club than vlasic, himself. club-friendly deal. leaves plenty of more money for more talent.

hawks GM davidson said vlasic is a top 4 D-man, while reality tells us that vlasic is a lock on the club's #1 pairing. great deal for the club, considering that vlasic could and should get even better.

vlasic also joining seth jones on the usa team for this year's world championship in mrazek's home country. it was the czech republic since communism fell, now it's czechia.

yeah...thinking that reichel's shit year came at the best time for the club - his contract year. not sure what spiel his agent will roll out to try and get his client 2+ million/per.

reichel and agent showing a bit of humility. resigned for $1.2 million per, for 2 years.

was earning $925k on his entry level contract. 30% raise. team reichel had to come into the season thinking he'd at least more than double his salary after a 20 goal year and all his potential. the best laid plans...

the cap is going up by apprx. $4 million and i'm thinking that the blackhawks got a great deal here. he can't play any worse next year and $1.2 million is a speck on the annual salary expenditures/cap obligations in regards to 1 out of 12 dressed forwards. risk/reward favors kyle from chicago. hoping that reichel gets a 100% raise, the next time.

Did they really have a choice? He wasn't great.

you may be right. i can definitely see #1 rated UFA RD montour of the panthers more than doubling his current salary ($3.5 mil per) this off-season. i just can't see that with UFA RD pesce ($4 mil per). the word out of florida is that the panthers and montour are close on $7 million per year. i don't believe that pesce is worth more than montour. if he gets more, God bless...

if i get reinhart, then, i want pesce. i'd give pesce up to $6.5 mil per. if he wanted more, i'd walk away.

to me, the key with montour is that montour isn't taking a small raise to keep florida's core intact. he's likely to double his salary and the panthers want to keep him. no doubt reinhart's agent would tell reinhart to re-evaluate his commitment to a smaller raise to keep the panther's core intact. the chicago hockey club has to make an offer reinhart can't refuse.

Trae Young will be a bust. Book It!

don't want to get the masses excited, but I've seen several publications stating that the Hawks improved more than any team in the NHL. Still picked for bottom 5 in the league which shows you how terrible they really were last season.