Rozner: Reloading after title is just what Blackhawks do

The world breaks everyone, and afterward some are strong at the broken places.

It might have been Behn Wilson who said it first. Or Hemingway. Who can remember at a time like this?

Another fan convention is about to pass and Blackhawks Nation is reeling after the loss of Brandon Saad and Patrick Sharp.

That doesn't even include defenseman Stephen Johns, and a list of young defensemen who have been sent packing in the last three years that could paper the floor in a dry United Center.

It's not easy to read or digest, but it's the cost of playing poker at the most expensive table. The Hawks have built a dynasty around a core of Hall of Fame players who win Stanley Cups and get paid commensurate with their rings and ability.

It's simply the way it is.

Yeah, the summer of 2010 was painful, but that was while losing half a roster. This summer rivals for sheer agony among the faithful because Saad is the best of all the departed, destined for greatness and nearly there already.

Sharp was one of the Magnificent Seven and perhaps as popular as any Hawks player in the last 10 years, a ferocious worker who held his tongue and did his job, no matter how menial the task, no matter how weak the linemates.

They will be missed.

But in the places the Hawks are broken they will have to mend quickly and with greater strength, the whole again needing to be better than any individual parts that have been delivered elsewhere.

You don't easily replace players like Saad and Sharp and the Hawks aren't pretending to do so, at least not with a single individual or two.

They're hoping to score big with supercheap players such as Marko Dano, Ryan Garbutt, Viktor Tikhonov and Artemi Panarin, while believing that Artem Anisimov will play to his ability when surrounded by a demanding leadership group.

At 27, Anisimov needs to play more than half the games, win more than half his faceoffs, be more than a half-point-a-game player and score more than 7 goals, as he did last year. The Hawks have to hope a championship influence will alter Anisimov's will to win and desire to improve.

Same for Trevor Daley, who has played a lot like Johnny Oduya before Johnny Oduya was given the gift of skating with a responsible forward group and elite defensemen such as Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook and Niklas Hjalmarsson.

Meanwhile, the Hawks have drafted many good, young players, some of whom will need to contribute next season.

Add it all up and it's a gamble, to be sure. The Hawks are taking fliers on several players who needed jobs, and jobs are something the Hawks can offer at the moment.

This is life in the salary cap era. This is the business they've chosen.

The Hawks are guaranteed nothing going forward, especially in a division that gets better every year and in a conference that becomes more punishing with every summer of trades and signings.

The impressive part is how unemotional general manager Stan Bowman is about his job, where he must find players his coach will play, without ever forcing his Hall of Fame coach to play someone he doesn't want to play.

So Bowman trades a Nick Leddy on the verge becoming a top-four defenseman and he moves enough young defensemen to fill an AHL all-star team.

Bowman traded for and developed Leddy and it could not have been easy to deal him, but if the coach doesn't like a player, Bowman doesn't stew on it. He does what has to be done.

Just as painful must have been trading Saad, who Bowman drafted when others weren't as convinced of his future. All Saad did was arrive a year later and win two Stanley Cups in his first three seasons in the NHL.

But, again, Bowman felt he had no choice but to move on when the two sides couldn't agree on a contract.

It's what a GM must do in the cap era. You can't fall in love with your players or become their friends, and Bowman has taken a clinical approach to a cold business.

It's how you recover from tough situations without outspending your means. It's how you keep your core competing for Stanley Cups even while losing integral parts every time you win a title.

Ah, but there's the key. The Hawks keep moving forward. They keep competing. They keep winning Cups.

But the next one will be more difficult.

The next one always 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, and follow him @BarryRozner on Twitter.