The Flyers because of their own salary cap issues shipped Simon Gagne for a fourth round draft pick and a bleh defenceman (Makes you appreciate the magic Stan Bowman has done this offseason.) This leaves Patrick Sharp as the best scorer out on the market. However, earlier today according to an Adam Jahns of the Chicago Sun Times twitter feed, Stan Bowman stated that Sharp is going nowhere. Is this simply posturing on the part of Bowman? I still think the Hawks need to dump some salary to keep Niemi and fill out the roster. The Hawks are a million over the cap limit with seventeen players signed. The Hawks will add at least four more defencemen to fill out their bottom two lines. They will also have to add Corey Crawford's salary after they send Huet down to the AHL.

If you take away the Huet contract, the Hawks will be sitting at $54,851,590 based on the amounts currently posted on Cap Geek. That gives Chicago $4,548,410 to sign Niemi and fill out the rest of the roster. Let’s say the Hawks sign Niemi for $2,000,000 as everyone hopes. That leaves just over $2,500,000 to fill out the remainder of the roster. The league minimum is $500,000. Corey Crawford will be due $800,000 for next season.  As everyone can see, something has to give. The Hawks could ship Tomas Kopecky and/or send Marty Reasoner packing again, but how hard will it be to find a trading partner? That brings us back to Patrick Sharp. A decent scoring center who is good defensively will command a premium on the market. With the ability to dump Kopecky and Reasoner to alleviate the cap crunch (replace them with league minimum players), Bowman may sit back and see what offers he may get for Sharp. Obviously, he doesn’t have to settle for what the Flyers received in return for Gagne.

While many Blues fans were squealing with glee when San Jose signed the Hawks’ Niklas Hjalmarsson to an offer sheet and add to Chicago cap woes, what they failed to realize is that it affects them directly. Erik Johnson, former No. 1 of the Blues, (You know the guy they wished they didn’t draft instead of Toews) wants to be paid like a No. 1 draft pick and will probably get paid more than the $3.7 million per year he made previously. The Blues don’t have cap space issues, but they do have issues with ownership which will cause St. Louis to be closer to the floor than the cap. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.  In addition, with defencemen such as Paul Martin and Dan Hamhuis receiving sizable deal in addition to Hammer's deal may make Johnson feel like he is worth considerably more.  After all, he was the No. 1 pick overall in 2006, and the value of quality defencemen are increasing after witnessing the Hawks winning the Cup with an above average goaltender and with very good blueliners.

Niemi deal discount?

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Antti Niemi wants to avoid arbitration, and he wants to stay with the Chicago Blackhawks, the Chicago Tribune reports. Those two things might mean one thing: Niemi is willing to take a discounted deal.

There was some speculation Niemi could demand more than Jaroslav Halak, who got $3.75 million a year from the St. Louis Blues. But if that's the case, the Hawks will let this go to arbitration. And if the Hawks don't like the number, they could choose to let him go.

That would be a bad situation for Niemi because there aren't many teams looking for a goalie, much less a starter. So Niemi and his agent, Bill Zito, will likely work hard to get something done with the Hawks.

Niemi or Sharp? In an effort to resign Niemi and fill out the roster, it appears additional moves are necessary. Personally, I would love to keep Patrick Sharp. He is a decent goal scoring option, plus he is a good defensive forward. As far as I am concerned that is very hard combo to find. Oh yeah..... he also tied for the most goals by a Hawk this postseason. Niemi was great, but I think he is closer to Cam Ward than Ken Dryden.

Who would you rather have Niklas Hjalmarsson or Antti Niemi? It appears that will be the choice the Hawks need to make. Also, what is the reasoning behind your choice. Personally, I would go with Hammer. He is the perfect complement to Campbell in the second line. Unfortunately, without Niemi the Hawks might have had more trouble with the Sharks in the Conference Finals. While 2 out of the 3 Stanley Cup winning goalies ended up being Hall of Famers, is it possible that Niemi may flame out and you should go with the defenceman who could be great in the next few years? What do you guys think?

As a guy who loves Chicago sports teams and who once lived in St. Louis, I can say without a doubt I enjoyed the Hawks Cup win more than the average fan. Many of the obnoxious Cardinals' fans which taunted my Cub fandom also are Blues fans. Needless to say, they don't appreciate my calling the Blues the Cubs of hockey.  They are both supposedly cursed and neither team has been to a championship in ages. However, the Cubs have actually won a World Series. The Blues on the other hand were swept in three straight Stanley Cups. Who was the coach? Scotty Bowman. That is right. The special advisor and father of Stan Bowman. During the season right after the Blues last Stanley Cup appearance, management had a disagreement with Bowman and canned him twenty eight games into the season. A year later he would become the coach of Montreal and the Canadiens would go on to win five cups during the 70s. As for the Blues, lets just say they have had a great years, but no return appearances. Hence, in St. Louis, The Curse of Scotty Bowman began.

As irony would have it, Scotty Bowman is not main link between the Blackhawks and the Blues. Enjoy this excerpt from Wikipedia. :o)

The Blues were one of the six teams added to the NHL in the 1967 expansion, along with the Minnesota North Stars, Los Angeles Kings, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins and California Seals.

St. Louis was the last of the expansion teams to officially gain entry into the league, chosen over Baltimore at the insistence of the Chicago Blackhawks. At the time, the Blackhawks were (and still are) owned by the influential Wirtz family of Chicago, which also owned the then-decrepit St. Louis Arena. The Wirtzes sought to unload the Arena, which had not been well-maintained since the 1940s, and thus pressed the NHL to give St. Louis (which had never even submitted a formal expansion bid) a franchise over Baltimore. The team's first owners were insurance tycoon Sid Salomon Jr., his son, Sid Salomon III, and Robert L. Wolfson, who were granted the franchise in 1966. Sid Salomon III convinced his initially wary father to make a bid for the team. Salomon then spent several million dollars on massive renovations for the 38-year-old Arena, which increased the number of seats from 12,000 to 15,000.

Blackhawks and the Blues are linked in hockey history in two ways. Obviously, my favorite link through Bowman. I marked the ending of an era in St. Louis and beginning of one in Chicago.

From now on, I will be posting what is going on with our rivals, Detroit and St. Louis. I will even include tidbits from other pains such as Vancouver.