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Rozner: Teravainen ran out of time with Blackhawks

When the Blackhawks drafted Teuvo Teravainen as a 17-year-old, GM Stan Bowman had visions of a highly-skilled, second-line center dancing in his head.

He could see the future and in it was Teravainen working between Patrick Kane and, well, take your pick of left wings. With those two on the same line, all they needed was a big body to occupy space in front of the net.

Someone, for example, like Bryan Bickell.

Now, both Teravainen and Bickell are gone, off to Carolina for very different reasons, having failed in Chicago, also for very different reasons.

Bickell's biggest problem was being overpaid, a function of a well-timed playoff performance in 2013 that netted him a four-year, $16 million deal.

Had he been a $2 million player, he would not have spent time in the AHL and he would not have become a target of all those who despise the salary cap and all it stands for in the NHL.

It was a contract that raised a lot of eyebrows around the league at the time, but from the Hawks' standpoint it made sense. The coach loved Bickell's combination of size, speed, shot and physical play. He had come off a spectacular playoff and he could play on any of the four lines.

Before that postseason, Bickell had never been that player and he never was again after a Stanley Cup run that ended with glory in Boston.

What is never discussed is how much the vertigo Bickell suffered from off and on the last few years had to do with his lackluster play.

But Bickell's contract is part of the reason Teravainen is also gone, a failure at the grand old age of 21 to live up to expectations.

When you operate in Gary Bettman's cap world - where small markets and incompetent management teams are gifted opportunities to win - almost nothing is black and white when it comes to transactions, and there are many reasons Teravainen is gone, and many layers to his time here.

Bickell or not, Bowman had to make some tough calls. The most obvious part of this is Joel Quenneville adores Andrew Shaw, and assuming they didn't consider moving a big name from their core, Teravainen was not going to perform enough in a bottom-six role to get paid next summer as a restricted free agent, when the Hawks will have to find dollars for Artemi Panarin.

If Michal Kempny contributes as hoped, he will also need to get paid a year from now. Any way you slice it, the cap room was not going to be there for Teravainen, a player considered by the coach to be nothing more than a third-line - and sometimes fourth-line - forward.

He simply ran out of time to prove to Quenneville that he belonged.

To an extent, yes, it was a choice between Shaw and Teravainen and the head coach was never sold on Teravainen, while Shaw is everything that Quenneville loves about players and about hockey.

To Quenneville, Teravainen is an enigma.

He is fast and talented and smooth, but with the pressure of the head coach looking over his shoulder every minute of every game, he did not advance his play enough to measure up with the Hawks' best forwards.

So the coach buried him on lines with second-rate forwards, asking him to play a game that doesn't suit his style, and he inexplicably benched the youngster during the 2015 playoffs.

Still, Teravainen was a half-point a game player here last season and collected 10 points in 19 playoff games when the Hawks won the Cup in 2015.

But he is now a memory, yet another talented young player sent packing as the Hawks tiptoe the line of keeping their Stanley Cup hopes alive and staying under the cap ceiling.

Teravainen will have a better chance of reaching his potential under more relaxed circumstances and with more ice time, not having to worry about losing minutes every time he tries to make a play.

Some Hawks have that leeway, but young players who don't hit hard and don't get to the front of the net will not get those extra chances from a head coach who has earned the right to keep players on a short leash, to pick and choose, to play favorites.

When you win three Stanley Cups and are headed to the Hall of Fame, you get to do that.

Argue the merits if you like, but it's a waste of breath.

This is just the way it is.

brozner@dailyherald.com

• Listen to Barry Rozner from 9 a.m. to noon Sundays on the Score's "Hit and Run" show at WSCR 670-AM.

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