Strike One - Parise & Suter Not Coming To Chicago

While Zach Parise and Ryan Suter were locked away in their bunkers with their agents and families receiving ridiculous contract offers we Blackhawks fans were teased for 72 hours with dreams of signing one or both.

Both were probably out of the question because of salary cap constraints, but with a series of salary dumping moves it could have been pulled off.  It appears though that it was not going to happen anyway. 

In acutality it appears that only a few teams had a shot because Parise and Suter had planned to attempt to play together all along.  Seemed a lot like the NBA free agent fiasco of 2010 minus "The Decision" and a current Minnesota Wild player pretending to take offers elsewhere.  Yes Dwayne Wade, we know you were playing us.  In fact Nashville GM, David Poile seemed pretty close to firing off a Comic Sans letter ala Dan Gilbert.

In the end they chose Minnesota for "family" reasons.  In my opinion neither chose Chicago because they would not have been "The Guy" at their respective positions.  The Wild are now a low seed playoff team, but far from a Cup contender.  So good luck with that!

Now the Blackhawks may not have signed either, but the fact that neither went to Detroit or Nashville is a huge benefit.  Both teams had plenty of cap room to sign both.

It's on to plan B now.  I don't think the Blackhawks are going to sign anyone of significance through free agency.  Their big signing was retaining Johnny Oduya.

I'd expect a few trades if anything.  If I had to predict a trade it would be Hjalmarsson to Edmonton for Sam Gagner.  The Hawks have been linked to Gagner for a few years now.  He was a linemate of Patrick Kane with the London Knights in the OHL.  The logic is Kane can get Gagner back to what he was on track to be when they were linemates.  Edmonton needs defense and Hjalmarsson would fit well there with a young team.

All we can do is see what Stan Bowman has set up as plans B and C.  Hopefully we are not going any further than that.  With the dysfucntion and two first round exits the last two years I'm not sure Bowman can afford to swing and miss too much this offseason.  Next year's free agent class is much bigger, but Bowman has to succeed this summer in my opinion to be around for next summer.