2024 opening night

Interesting but I think we can just attach Forsberg and one of the 4ths we have to some team and they’d take him for the season.

CHI shouldn't do that.

We should stay away from Roslovic, not the right guy for 2C even short term or the Hawks system.

Highly doubt Vlasic would sign an 8 year deal at $5.2M. Remember, as a 22 year rookie against the toughest assignments, he's ranked top 3 defensive players in the defensive zone. If Vlasic were never to improve from this season, unlikely given his age and the improvement from a year ago, he'd be worth $6M minimum to $8M on a 8 year deal. He and his agent are not only wouldn't take a penny less, they will bet on him improving and thus almost certainly don't want a 8 year deal unless it's around $8M which the Hawks probably wouldn't do. For that reason, he's likely a 3 year bridge and going to land anywhere from $3M to $5M on a 3 year bridge deal is my guess. If I'm Chicago though, I'd push to lock him up between $6M and $7M on a 8 year deal as that will look like a bargain in a few years with Vlasic almost certainly improving and the cap continuing to rise. We could be looking at the best shutdown defender in the league in a couple years, and I'd argue if he had played 6 less games last season in the NHL and could qualify for the Calder, he'd be in the conversation right behind Bedard and Faber with a pretty good argument.

I think the Hawks bring in a cheap RHD vet for 1 or 2 years until Rinzel (or Levshunov if the Hawks draft him) are ready for the show. Keep rotating Del Mastro, Kaiser, Crevier and Philips all getting chances to play 20 games on the left side 3rd line. The good news is all 4 have shown they can play in the league to varying degrees with Del Mastro probably ahead of the class of 4. Certainly at least 1 or 2 will get moved in the next couple years. The question mark to me is Allan. Can Allan play on his off-side in the NHL and be good enough in a 3rd line role? He's played a fair amount on his off-side, so could be interesting or perhaps the Hawks don't think highly enough of him. My rankings of those 5 are as follows; Del Mastro, Kaiser, Crevier, Alan, Phillips in that order. It's a logjam for sure.

I disagree with this. Shutdown dmen don't make $8M. If he signed at $5.2M for 8 years, he would be overpaid for the first 2 to 4 years of the contract. Which means overall, he will have made more money in total than he would have on a bridge plus his contract after the bridge deal. At his peak, as a shutdown defenseman, $5.2M should be right in line with market value. The only way he gets $8M or more is if he adds a ton of offense to his game. Which is possible, but, again, the overpayment in the first few years of the contract should be able to make up for that discrepancy, and if they structure the contract properly and backload the deal, he will be making that much or close enough to it in the back half of the contract, just at a lower AAV, which helps the team.

Contract structure:

@ a $5.18M AAV x 8 years

Actual salary:
Year 1: $3M
Year 2: $3M
Year 3: $3M
Year 4: $4.5M
Year 5: $5.5M
Year 6: $6.5M
Year 7: $8M
Year 8: $8M

No way. Gudas just signed this season for $4M and he's 33 years old. Brodin signed at 28 years old for $6M 3 years ago. McDonagh signed at 30 years old for $6.75M 5 years ago. Slavin signed 6 years ago, age 23 at $5.3M which is probably the closest to Vlasic...6 years ago!

With a 22 year old on a long term deal playing at the level of those players today, and you're paying for future ability obviously and against a rising cap, those comps aren't going to land Vlasic. Player contracts are based on a % against the total cap obviously. When all those players signed the cap limits were lower and they were much older aside from Slavin. Not only would he NOT be overpaid at $5.2M next year...that would be about fair market value (at least in the ballpark), he would be way underpaid in a few years against a rising cap to boot.