Blackhawks have a lot to look forward to

One year ago today, the Blackhawks celebrated the greatest night in franchise history when they won the Stanley Cup in Philadelphia.

It has been a tumultuous 12 months since the Hawks ended their 49-year Cup drought filled with more lows than highs starting with a dramatic roster turnover due to salary cap reasons, but the future remains bright for a team that believes it's not done winning championships.

In fact, when the puck drops on a new season in October, there's no reason to think the Hawks won't be considered one of the favorites to win the Stanley Cup based on an impressive group of core players who should be well-rested and motivated to return to the top of the NHL.

It'll be up to general manager Stan Bowman in the coming weeks to fill in the gaps around his star players, something in hindsight he deserves so-so marks for doing last summer.

So far Bowman has had a good start to his off-season. He re-signed No. 1 goaltender Corey Crawford to a three-year, $8 million contract, and negotiated a two-year deal with Alexander Salak, who is the odds-on favorite to be Crawford's backup.

In the next few weeks Bowman must decide which path to take with key restricted free agents Michael Frolik, Troy Brouwer, Chris Campoli, Viktor Stalberg and Jake Dowell. There are also decisions to make with unrestricted free agents Tomas Kopecky, Fernando Pisani, Ryan Johnson and Jordan Hendry.

But at this point heading toward the draft (June 24-25) and free agency (July 1), the positives far outweigh the negatives with regard to the Hawks' chances of being one of the teams to beat in 2011-12.

The core:There isn't another GM in hockey who wouldn't love to look down his roster and see the names of Jonathan Toews, Patrick Sharp, Patrick Kane, Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook, Marian Hossa, Dave Bolland and Brian Campbell.This group was largely responsible for winning one Stanley Cup and is hardly aging, although Hossa will be 33 in January.Most of them are locked up contractually for multiple years with the exception of Sharp, who would become an unrestricted free agent next summer. The Hawks can begin negotiating with Sharp on July 1.#8220;He's a guy we certainly want to keep around,#8221; Bowman said recently. #8220;I suspect it's going to be like it was with those other guys, which is you start negotiations and hopefully it doesn't carry on too long.#8220;We've had a pretty good track record here of being able to get our core guys to want to stay here, and I'm sure Sharpie is in that group as well.#8221;The kids:Maybe the best thing to come out of last season was getting young players such as Crawford, Nick Leddy, Ben Smith and Marcus Kruger valuable experience in critical games.The Hawks see Leddy as a potential top-four defenseman down the road while Smith emerged in the playoffs as the kind of gritty forward the team needed. Time will tell if Smith is the real deal, but what stood out most during his late-season stint was his character, work ethic and willingness to get to the tough areas to make plays.Kruger is a Bolland-like player who is smart and works at both ends of the ice. He could either wind up playing on a line with Bolland or centering one of the depth lines himself.The Hawks also expect winger Jeremy Morin to be a factor at training camp #8212; a guy who plays with grit and also possess the good hands of a goal scorer.The cap: In no way are the Hawks under the same kind of salary cap crunch they were last summer when Dustin Byfuglien, Andrew Ladd, Antti Niemi, Kris Versteeg, Adam Burish, John Madden and Brent Sopel all had to move on for financial reasons.Are the Hawks in great shape cap wise? Certainly not. They have $5.1 million of cap space at the moment, but Bowman does have some wiggle room to make things happen and options to trade away some salaries.It has been estimated the NHL's salary cap could go up to as much as $63 million from its present $59.4 million, which would be great news for Bowman. Playing the market:Bowman likely won't be big player in free agency, but it's a thin market when it comes to top-end talent.The Hawks figure to be on the lookout for size, players who are physical and tough to play against, and a center who can win faceoffs.Along those lines there are a few players who might interest the Hawks such as Eric Belanger, Arron Asham, Pascal Dupuis, Mike Rupp, Max Talbot and even Raffi Torres.#376; Follow Tim's Hawks reports via Twitter @TimSassone, and join the conversation on his Between the Circles blog at dailyherald.com.