from Eric Duhatschek of the Globe and Mail,

Currently, both players are making the same exact salaries - $6.3-million – and it probably isn’t far-fetched to say both will be in line for significant raises. On the basis of Toews’s value to the team - and the generally held view that if you could pick one player to start a team from scratch, it would be him -it’s hard to imagine he’d settle for less than Sidney Crosby money, and that’s probably where the negotiating fun will start.

Crosby got signed under the last collective bargaining agreement, so he received $104.4-million over 12 years, with an average of $8.7-million, which was permitted because the final three throwaway years are at $3-million apiece. In terms of actual dollars in his bank account, Crosby earned $12-million this year and will do so again for the next two seasons. Overall, in the first nine years of the contract, Crosby will never earn less than $9-million.

Since Kane and Toews are virtually inseparable in the marketing of the Blackhawks, the former will likely want the same money as the latter – and it’s going to get pricey, as the salary cap starts to inch up again.

Negotiations can officially start after July 1, and that will be Bowman’s priority, to get the two signed early, which will then give him lots of time to tweak the rest of the roster around them.

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