Kukla's Korner Hockey

Kukla's Korner Hockey

Keeping Toews And Kane In Chicago

12/06/2013 at 9:49am EST

Craig Custance of ESPN answers some email...

Where do you suppose the Kane and Toews deals come in at next summer money wise? Stan Bowman has done a good job of getting guys to take a tad less money to stay in/on a good situation/city/roster in Chicago. Also, if Kane and Toews do want to break the bank, does that screw the up the whole plan?

Great question. I recently went to Chicago to chat with both of them and they talk about their next contract at length in the next ESPN The Magazine. Make sure to grab a copy when it hits newsstands. But it’s a fascinating negotiation.

One of things we talked about was whether or not they needed to have the exact same deal and they pointed out that we’ve seen teammates like Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf all take different amounts of money to get long-term deals done. In the case of Kane and Toews, they’re both represented by Pat Brisson, which might make things easier in that regard. But those are the deals I’d look at when figuring out their potential value. You have to throw out Sid’s deal because it was done before the new CBA. But Perry, Getzlaf and Malkin are certainly fair comparables so we’re talking something in the annual range of $8.5 to $9.5 million. Malkin had KHL leverage, which Kane and Toews don’t, so I’m not sure Stan Bowman has to go as high as the Malkin deal. Also, I don’t know how you do anything less than eight years for these two considering their age (25). So let’s split the difference and say they get $9 million per season, for the sake of answering your final question. That’s an extra $2.7 million per season cap hit for each player, for a total of an additional $5.4 million compared to their current deals. A healthy raise but not debilitating to Chicago’s future cap.

It doesn’t screw up the long-term plan at all because most salary cap projections have it continuing to grow in the next couple years, especially considering the billion dollar Canadian television deal. I don’t think it’s a reach at all to think that the salary cap will be north of $70 million when the new deals kick in for Chicago. Even if the cap just gets to $70 million for the 2015-16 season (the first year of a new Kane/Toews contract), which I think is conservative, that’s a $5.7 million increase from the cap this season, covering the $5.4 million raise we’re giving those two annually. If you look at the cost certainty Bowman has already built into the equation with his other long-term deals, the Blackhawks should be able to keep the band together.

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Paul Kukla founded Kukla’s Korner in 2005 and the site has since become the must-read site on the ‘net for all the latest happenings around the NHL.

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