Jersey Destruction: Part 2

Welcome back to the ongoing series "Jersey Destruction". No, it's not about the Carolina Hurricanes giving Martin Brodeur a blown gasket, it's where I mercilessly skewer the jerseys of all 30 NHL teams.

The Central division is rife with fodder for me to mock, so in the spirit of my last post I will show no mercy.

Chicago Blackhawks

You know what I think of when Chicago comes to mind? Native Americans. Okay, not really. Ask ten people what comes to mind when they hear Chicago and their answers will range from "deep dish pizza" to "Sears Tower" to "The Cubs". I'll bet nary a one says "The Blackhawk Tribe." That aside, a pat on the back for avoiding the cartoonish depiction that Cleveland uses, but hey, it's Cleveland. It also appears that the mascot is wearing the NBC peacock in his hair, which is ironic since the Blackhawks didn't televise games for what seemed like a century. The Blackhawks mascot is named "Tommy Hawk" which is all too appropriate considering the town's violent background. Nothing draws Chicago fans like the threat of violence!

Columbus Blue Jackets

Pretty surprising they would select a team name with the word "Blue" in it considering they're in the same division as the St. Louis Blues. So, what comes to mind when you hear "Blue Jackets"? Is it a sale at JC Penney? Is it a rare variety of bee? Nope, it's a Civil War soldier! Did anyone tell these guys to avoid the abbreviation "B.J."? Between the NBC peacock in the Blackhawks logo and the shooting star in Columbus' you have a "The More You Know" PSA.

Detroit Red Wings


On the opposite end of the spectrum from Atlanta, Detroit decided they needed just two colors because they weren't boring enough. Can someone explain this winged-wheel to me. Does it fly? Is it supposed to roll? Do the wings flap against the road as it wobbles around? Is it attached to anything or is it just some kind of lame Transformer? Or maybe it's an angelic unicycle? I mean, isn't the point of the auto industry that it rolls and doesn't fly?

Nashville Predators


There are a lot of animals that could be considered predators, but Nashville was bold and went with one that had incredibly impractical biting apparatus. Dinosaur? No. Jungle cat? Closer. Extinct cat with a severe overbite? Bingo! Pat on the back for ditching the third jersey with the logo that looked like it had a hairball caught in its throat. However, making silver a prominent color just makes us think you're a second place kind of team.

St. Louis Blues

I mean, you're really setting yourself up for failure when your team is named after the official music of the depressed. It must be a thing in the Central Division to add wings to an obscure inanimate object. When I say your logo is a low C, I'm not speaking in musical terms. As a bonus, here is the Blues mascot Louie pictured with former Blues netminder Manny Legace:

I hope you enjoyed this segment of Jersey Destruction. Tune in next time as we head back east!

Fuzzy Math

Let's rewind a few weeks to the start of the free-agency period. The most coveted free-agent available this year, Marian Hossa, shocks everyone and signs with the Chicago Blackhawks. In one fell swoop Hossa signed with his former team's rival (not surprising considering his track record), displaced his friend and former Blackhawks star Martin Havlat, and added to an already ballooning Chicago payroll.

Oh, but it's okay. Hossa got one of those crazy, new, front-loaded contracts that makes everything okay! Want me to explain? I'd love to!

Chicago signed Hossa to a 12 year deal worth $62.8 million. Ludicrous, but here's the catch; the contract is heavily front-loaded so even though Hossa will make nearly $8 million for the next seven seasons, his contract will drop to $4 million and less for the last 5 years. This averages Hossa's cap-hit to $5.167 million per season. In short, a team can only have about $57 million worth of contracts per season. So by giving Hossa this contract, they have around $3 million more in cap space for the first seven seasons than they would if Hossa's cap-hit matched his actual cash dollars.

Don't worry, the hard math is almost over and I'll get to the interesting stuff. Why is this contract so strange? Let's compare it to that of Eric Staal on my favorite team, the Carolina Hurricanes. Staal is a comparable player to Hossa in terms of offensive production. Staal is also signed to a long term deal and also for a lot of money. However, Staal's cash dollar amount starts at $6 million and goes up to $9.5 million at the end of the deal. This gives Staal a large cap-hit of $8.25 million. Here is the key difference; when Staal's contract expires he will be 32 and in the prime of his career. When Hossa's deal expires he will be 42 and ready for bingo (in hockey years that is).

The Hurricanes should be able to justify the steep cap hit in 2015 because Staal should still be putting up big numbers. Can Chicago justify wasting over $5 million in cap space on a guy who may not be nearly as productive?

This is where it gets interesting. There is an allegation that Hossa and the Blackhawks have a secret deal in place that Hossa will retire before the end of his contract, thereby preventing Chicago from having to pay him the low end of the contract in the future and also preventing them from wasting the cap space now. For Hossa and the Blackhawks it's a win-win. Get a guy in the prime of his career, pay him lots of money now, and take a smaller cap-hit by circumventing the rules of the CBA (the Collective Bargaining Agreement, in layman's terms, the rules).

Why stop there? They could have signed him to a 40 year deal, pay him $8 million for the first 10 seasons, then pay the league minimum of $500,000 for the last 30. His cap-hit would be $2.375 million and he could retire at the age of 40 and nullify the last 30 years of the contract. Well, that would be about as transparent as a Filet-O-Fish wrapper and since it is totally against the rules, they lessen the risk of getting caught by signing him to the contract he has now.

Well, the NHL thought something was rotten in Denmark anyway because they have launched an investigation of Hossa and Chicago's deal. If they are found guilty of malfeasance, Chicago faces a maximum penalty of $5 million and the loss of draft picks. I would imagine Hossa's contract would be declared null and void as well, thereby making him a free-agent. From there I'm sure Hossa and the Blackhawks could figure something out that didn't fly in the face of the rules.

So to tally it up; so far this summer Chicago has misfiled their RFA qualifying offers, unceremoniously fired their much loved GM, and potentially signed Marian Hossa to an illegal contract. Quite a bit of funk blowing around in the Windy City...