Rozner: Blackhawks face post-Cup challenges again

It was under a cloud that the Blackhawks opened training camp a couple weeks ago, and under a cloud the Hawks will raise another banner Wednesday night.

And as insensitive and insignificant as it feels to discuss the upcoming season, it begins in just a few days and the Stanley Cup champs will be attempting to do what they failed to do after their first two Cups.

In their defense, no NHL team has defended its title since the Red Wings in 1998, and of the 20 teams in the cap era to reach the Stanley Cup Final, only the Red Wings - who won it all in 2008 - returned to the Final the following season.

Needless to say, the odds are against the Hawks repeating.

And if history weren't enough, the Hawks have fallen victim again to Gary Bettman's salary cap, and you can't help but wonder just how many more Cups the Hawks would own if not for the choking restraints of the Bettman-induced payroll ceiling.

Nevertheless, it's still here and gone are the likes of Brandon Saad, Patrick Sharp, Johnny Oduya, Brad Richards, Antoine Vermette and Kris Versteeg.

You could put together a playoff team just from the list of players the Hawks have had to trade or let walk in the cap purges following their three title seasons.

Remaining, however, are Joel Quenneville and Jonathan Toews, a pair of certain Hall of Famers and the glue that keeps this machine running year after year, regardless of the departed.

Different from when they lost half a team after the 2010 win is their knowledge of how to make it work, something they struggled to figure out during a season in which they backed into the postseason on the final day of the schedule.

Also different is the goaltender, something they weren't sure they had in 2010-11 until the Vancouver series, when Corey Crawford was brilliant in pushing the Canucks to overtime of Game 7.

But once again there are several new players who will have to fit into Quenneville's system and produce for the Hawks to reach the playoffs in comfortable fashion.

So far, Artem Anisimov looks like the same Anisimov fans saw in New York and Columbus, ordinary most of the time and brilliant in small doses. That will not be good enough in Chicago and he needs to elevate his game.

With his demotion Friday, the Hawks sent a message to Marko Dano that a very talented young player is not guaranteed a spot, and that he has to play hard every shift to contribute to the three-time Cup winners.

Artemi Panarin looked really good at Notre Dame and has elite skill, but he was hurt most of the preseason and it remains to be seen how his play will translate during the regular season.

The Hawks are loaded with fourth line players and it's good to have grinders, but in a perfect world you wouldn't have them playing on the top three lines. As of this moment, there's certainly plenty of that.

The good news is a confident Teuvo Teravainen off a strong postseason should move into a much bigger role, and that's like dealing for a top six forward.

On defense, Trevor Daley will have to improve in his own end to step into Oduya's skates, and the final pair will probably see many different combinations throughout the year.

There will be a lot of movement on offense and defense and constant shuffling of players back and forth to Rockford while Quenneville gets a feel for what he has and what he needs.

There's no cap room to do anything extraordinary unless a big salary is moved, and that doesn't seem to be in the cards. Unless they eat a significant portion of his salary, the Hawks are stuck with Bryan Bickell.

There are a dozen teams with enough cap space to acquire Crawford, but there doesn't appear an interested candidate among that group, and let's not forget that Crawford was the Hawks' best player in the Stanley Cup Final the last two times the Hawks won the Cup.

Hawks management, thus far, seems well aware of that, despite a fondness for Scott Darling.

Meanwhile, the West is as deep as ever and getting better each season, and the teams at the top will be pressed to remain there.

So it's another season of challenges for the Hawks following a Stanley Cup victory, hardly a new posture for them having been through it before, and this time they'll have a better understanding of what it takes.

Besides, as long as No. 19 is around, you know he's going to find a way to keep this playoff train on the tracks.

brozner@dailyherald.com

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