Blackhawks massively overpay another player to stay on the worst team in hockey

The Chicago Blackhawks have been an interesting team recently, as they struggle to find players to fill up their NHL roster. They need to be above the NHL's cap floor whip still putting out a team that will get them a high draft pick, so they've resulted to overpaying older players so they can reach that cap floor easily. The most recent of these overpaid veterans they've signed is fan favourite Jason Dickinson.

Jason Dickinson is on pace for 26 goals and 40 points in 82 games, which to any other team would not be worth the $4.25M cap hit. With the Hawks having to reach the floor however, it fits perfectly in their scheme to sign him to a short, inflated contract.

Next up to sign should be goalie Petr Mrazek, and he will most likely get a similar low-term high AAV deal like Foligno and now Dickinson. According to insider Frank Seravalli, the Hawks are expected to turn their attention to Mrazek immediately, which also indicates he's off the trade market.



While the Blackhawks could instead be acquiring players on bad contracts from other teams and receiving picks and prospects for acting as a financial broker, instead the Hawks are trying a new and interesting strategy of handing out their own bad contracts just to meet the cap floor. We'll see how this plays out, but ultimately, the Hawks are only handicapping themselves by handing out seemingly intentionally overpriced contracts.