Keith, Toews, Kane give Hawks strong present ... and now future
To all those Blackhawks fans out there worried about the salary cap and the future of this dynamic team, chairman Rocky Wirtz had some advice on the day the club signed not one, not two, but three franchise cornerstones in Duncan Keith, Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane to long-term contract extensions.
The gist of Wirtz's message? Sit back, relax and enjoy the ride the rest of this season and worry about next year when it's time.
"What the fans have to realize is if have the nucleus, you can fill in," Wirtz said Thursday. "But what would happen if we hadn't had this nucleus and let these three gentlemen go to another team? Then they'd (fans) really be nervous.
"We're lucky to have players that want to play for us. Any other team in this league would have taken these players off our hands. They would have no problem doing that."
The Hawks certainly have what they believe is their core locked up now for at least the next two years and well beyond in some cases in Keith, Toews, Kane, Marian Hossa, Cristobal Huet, Brian Campbell and Kris Versteeg.
Brent Seabrook, Patrick Sharp and Dustin Byfuglien are signed through the 2010-11 season.
General manager Stan Bowman knows he has some tough decisions ahead after the season, but there's a Stanley Cup to be won first, and the Hawks would like to think they have a great shot at getting it.
"People fall in love with this team and we do, too, but this is not a phenomenon that just the Blackhawks face," Bowman said. "We're playing under the same rules as Pittsburgh, Detroit and Washington, so when you say we're going to have tough decisions this summer, that's correct, but last summer we saw teams let players go.
"I'm sure they weren't thrilled about it, but those are the rules and we're all playing under this system.
"Decisions have to be made and we'll make the right ones at the right time, but we don't need to get ahead of ourselves now."
These definitely are not Rocky Wirtz's father's Blackhawks, and the son knows it.
In signing Keith for 13 years at $72 million and Toews and Kane for five years at $31.5 million each on the heels of Hossa's 12-year, $62.8 million deal, Wirtz admitted they are the kind of bold moves that wouldn't have happened in the past when Bill Wirtz, his father, was the boss.
"I don't know if the Hawks would have made a commitment to players in he past, and I think it's important to do that," Wirtz said. "If you looked at where we came from two years ago, if I said we'd be standing here in the Stadium Club talking about signing two players for five years and another for 13, you're thinking I'm drinking all the whiskey we sell, or smoking some.
"But what it's really been is if the fans didn't show up, we couldn't do it. If we didn't have the outpouring, the 14,000-plus season-ticket holders, if we didn't have standing room being sold every night, if we didn't have this real excitement, we couldn't do it.
"With that commitment it certainly made the decision easy for us."
Bowman said that despite numerous reports claiming the Hawks needed to clear "tagging room" salary-cap space for next season, the numbers for Keith, Toews and Kane fit into the NHL's complex formula.
That doesn't mean making it work was easy. Bowman and assistant GM Kevin Cheveldayoff even flew to Toronto to meet with the league's cap people in order to get the contracts approved.
"There is a league formula and we spent days going over this with the league making sure we understood how they computed it and making sure that everything would work, and it did," Bowman said.
"This today is not impacting the current team at all. We can play with this team for the rest of the year, and we may choose to do that. We'll evaluate things as they come and if we find a way to do something that would help us we'll go down that road, but we may not."
Keith's contract will take him to the age of 39.
"It's great knowing I'm going to be a Blackhawk for the rest of my career," Keith said.
Toews and Kane will be unrestricted free agents when their deals end following the 2014-15 season.
"I can't envision playing anywhere else," Kane said.
"To be blessed to be in this city, I can't think of any better place to be drafted to when I was 18 years old," Toews said. "There's not a better place to be as far as the fans go, the way we're treated in this city and the atmosphere we get to play in every day is incredible.
"To me, it's not about the business side and all that stuff. I'm just happy to know I'm going to be part of this organization for a while longer and hopefully a lot longer after that."
<p class="factboxheadblack">Blackhawks game day</p></p> <p class="News">Nashville Predators at the United Center, 7:30 p.m.</p> <p class="News"><b>TV:</b> Comcast SportsNet</p> <p class="News"><b>Radio:</b> WGN 720-AM</p> <p class="News">What to watch: The Hawks lead the Predators by 5 points in the Central Division standings as they go for their ninth straight win at home. Nashville's top line of Jason Arnott, J.P. Dumont and Steve Sullivan combined for 9 points in Wednesday's 5-4 loss to Minnesota in overtime.</p> <p class="News"><b>Season series:</b> The Hawks lead 2-1 but are 1-for-10 on the power play.</p> <p class="News"><b>Next:</b> Pittsburgh Penguins at Mellon Arena, 6:30 p.m. Saturday.</p> <div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Stories</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=341615">Hawks' trio thrilled to share signing day<span class="date"> [12/3/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=341609">B<b>ARRY ROZNER:</b> Seabrook next in line for payday<span class="date"> [12/3/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=341621">Teammates laud signing of Duncan, Toews, Kane<span class="date"> [12/3/09]</span></a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>