Kukla's Korner Hockey
Johnny Oduya Not Thinking About His UFA Status
by Paul on 02/02/15 at 05:28 PM ET
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from Mark Lazerus of the Chicago Sun-Times,
There’s very little chance, if any, that Johnny Oduya will be wearing a Blackhawks sweater when training camp opens next fall. He knows that. Everyone knows that. It’s not that he doesn’t want to be back. It’s not that the Hawks don’t want him back. The math just doesn’t work.
As an unrestricted free agent with a cap crunch looming, the Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane megadeals kicking in, and a big Brandon Saad raise due, it’s virtually mathematically impossible for a veteran, well-paid defenseman such as Oduya to fit.
Oduya gets that, even if he won’t get into specifics.
“I’ve been around a couple years,” the nine-year veteran said. “I understand the ins and outs of that.”
But the urgency Oduya feels now, with the clock ticking on his Hawks career, is no different than the urgency he felt last spring. Or the spring before that. As Toews often says, you only get so many chances to make a run at a Stanley Cup, and the championship window only stays open so long. So Oduya’s thinking about what’s going to happen between now and June, not what’s going to happen in July.
Filed in: NHL Teams, Chicago Blackhawks, | KK Hockey | Permalink
Tags: johnny+oduya
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