Sharks' bid for Hjalmarsson puts Hawks in a dilemma
The Blackhawks' salary cap problem got worse on Friday thanks to San Jose Sharks general manager Doug Wilson.
The Sharks signed 23-year-old Hawks restricted free-agent defenseman Niklas Hjalmarsson to a four-year, $14 million offer sheet, putting the cash-strapped Hawks on the clock to match it.
The Hawks have seven days to match it. If they choose not to match and say goodbye to Hjalmarsson, they would get San Jose's first- and third-round picks in the 2011 draft.
"We feel Niklas is a top-three defenseman in the National Hockey League," said Wilson in sticking it to his former team, the one that swept the Sharks out of the Western Conference finals in May.
"We saw his abilities first-hand in the playoffs last season and he was an important piece of a Stanley Cup-winning team," Wilson said. "He is a solid player that would be a good fit on our team."
Hawks GM Stan Bowman did not comment and doesn't plan to speak to the media until Monday, the final day of prospect camp.
Do the Hawks have enough cap space to match the offer for Hjalmarsson and sign goalie Antti Niemi, another restricted free agent who has filed for arbitration?
The answer ranges from maybe to barely.
The Hawks have 14 players under contract for 2010-11, including recent acquisitions Marty Reasoner, John Scott and Viktor Stalberg.
They presently have just $3.58 million of cap space, but that's not including the $5.65 million cap hit for Cristobal Huet that's as good as off the books once the Hawks confirm they must eat the money by either waiving the veteran goalie and assigning him to the minors or letting him go play in Europe.
Minus Huet's money it would leave about $9.1 million of cap space.
Matching San Jose's offer for Hjalmarsson would mean accepting a $3.5 million cap hit, leaving approximately $5.6 million to sign Niemi and four to five other players such as Bryan Bickell and Jack Skille.
It's entirely possible the Hawks might be forced to choose between keeping Niemi or Hjalmarsson.
If they let him go, Hjalmarsson would join the long list of players gone after helping win the Stanley Cup - a list that includes Dustin Byfuglien, Kris Versteeg, Andrew Ladd, Brent Sopel, John Madden, Ben Eager, Adam Burish and Colin Fraser.
The Hawks had to be caught off guard by the Sharks' bid for Hjalmarsson based on what Bowman said recently. Bowman last week dismissed rumors circulating that either Niemi or Hjalmarsson might be the target of a team looking to make an offer sheet.
"The rumors happen a lot, but offer sheets don't happen," Bowman said on July 1. "I don't know how many there have been. If you look back over the last 10 years there have been a handful. There's been a lot of talk about them, but they don't concern me. These guys are going to remain with the Blackhawks. They're not going anywhere. We have plenty of flexibility to make things work with the structure of our team right now.
"That's a tactic that can be used, but just look over history and there's just a handful that have ever happened."
The offer sheet for Hjalmarsson was just the sixth in the NHL since the lockout five years ago.
"Offer sheets are always a surprise," said Kevin Epps, the agent for Hjalmarsson. "I'm sure we'll still talk to the Hawks.
"Teams realize Chicago's position with the salary cap and Niklas is a good, young player on the rise."
Hjalmarsson has played in 111 NHL games - 77 last season - and is considered one of the Hawks' key players on the blue line with Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook and Brian Campbell. He made just $666,000 last season while logging almost 20 minutes of ice time per night. Hjalmarsson played 21 minutes a game in the playoffs and was plus-9.