Is Signing Hossa A Lose-Lose Situation for the Blackhawks?

By: Jim Neveau, Blackhawks Beat Writer

With the signing of Marian Hossa to a massive 12 year, $62.8 million contract on Wednesday, which will keep him in Blackhawks colors all the way to the year 2021, the Blackhawks have guaranteed at least one thing: for the second year in a row, they have made the biggest splash possible at the outset of the NHL free agency period.

What they have also guaranteed is a summer full of questions and number crunching by the fans of the franchise who want to win a Cup so badly, but now are afraid of what a win this year might entail for some of their favorite players in the coming years.

Mike Babcock remarked during the postseason that the only thing that could really de-rail the Blackhawks’ as they go forward would be salary cap issues, and the Hossa signing has the potential to prove him right. The signing may have hurt Detroit, but in the long run, Babcock may be able to do the “I’m right!” dance at the Joe in a few years.

The Hossa signing took everyone in Chicago by surprise simply because of the way the Martin Havlat situation went down. The Hawks were adamant about not signing Havlat to a long-term extension, simply because they were wanting to re-sign their three big guns to contract extensions after next season: Toews, Kane and Keith.

Havlat therefore, while popular, became a man that the organization outwardly wanted to keep, but only at a certain price. It was almost as though fans were asked to understand that the team had to be future minded, and that kind of request for patience and critical thinking is a rare thing in professional sports.

That illusion of being future-minded was quickly snuffed out on Wednesday, as the Hossa signing indicated that the team was willing to throw its money around in big chunks and the consequences will have to wait. The team is certainly guilty of a little sleight of hand on this one. They prostrated themselves in front of the fans of the team, saying they were committed to signing the Big Three next year and therefore Havlat had to go, and then they turned around and altered the free agent landscape in a big way again, contradicting themselves and giving fans reason to worry.

This is a signing that by most rationale should not have happened. Three of the Blackhawks’ core pieces  are going to be free agents next year, and without a degree of cap flexibility to insure against it, the Hawks will not be able to match an offer sheet to at least one if not more of those guys. If ANY of the Big Three do not get re-signed next off-season, it will be because of this signing, and Chicago fans will be filled with anger and resentment toward a team that has just started embracing them again.

Those emotions will be completely justified. Players with the talent of Marian Hossa don’t become available every day, but neither do players who have grown up in your system, and created a very strong bond with your fans. Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane are looked at as the two-headed face of the franchise. Toews is the strong, silent leader, and Kane is more of the matinee idol who whips the masses into a frenzy with his acrobatic goals and constantly present white mouthpiece hanging from his lips. Girls fawn over these two. Kids want to grow up to be them. Older guys whisper about them the same way they did about Hull and Mikita.

Duncan Keith, on the other hand, has appealed to Hawks fans because of his blue collar work ethic, and also his dazzling ability to snuff out plays by the opposition and turn them into opportunities for his own guys. He is an immensely popular player in this city, and really one of the more underrated defensemen in the league.

Needless to say, Chicagoans have formed quite an attachment to these three players, and that is not something to be taken lightly by the members of the front office. If any of them should find their way into a different jersey next year, it will be to the detriment of the squad, and hopefully Dale Tallon realizes that.

With that possibility of turning off fans on the table, what could possibly motivate Tallon to make this move? Was it a simple desire to make the team better? Was it a short-sighted, knee jerk reaction that smacks more of desperation than tactful disciplined spending? These motives have been investigated ad nauseum by the press of the city of Chicago and NHL beat writers, but one possible reason that has not been investigated with any sort of zeal is probably the most simple:
A Public Relations Stunt.

As fans of the team are undoubtedly aware after reading piece after piece about the resurrection of the Hawks, John McDonough is the former president of the Chicago Cubs who owner Rocky Wirtz brought in to direct the ship as president of the Hawks. McDonough’s background is in public relations, and he helped turn the Cubs into the team that they are today, one that draws fans by the millions to Wrigley Field, and a team very in tune with its fan base.

McDonough has brought that same enthusiasm to re-establishing the brand that is the Blackhawks. At one point in the past, the Hawks were the biggest thing going in the city of Chicago. Tickets to games at the old Chicago Stadium were simply impossible to come by. Stodgy old-timers still talk about those days of Hull, Mikita, and Pilote, and dream of those days coming back.

John has successfully created an air of excitement around the team in Chicago. Whether it was generating the get out the vote drive that carried Kane, Toews, and Brian Campbell into the starting lineup at the All-Star Game in Montreal, or in the enormous autograph signings over the last two years for the team’s biggest stars at HawkQuarters in Chicago, he has carried an air of reverence about the storied history of the franchise, and also a gleaming eye toward the future when the team will hopefully emerge victorious again.

I make these statements to preface this one: one can easily see where the motive for obtaining Hossa wasn’t based on a specific hockey need, but rather based in part on being a public relations move. After all, there is a notion in the political world that the illusion of doing something is more powerful and important than actually doing anything. I’m not saying that the Hossa signing is exactly that, but it certainly wouldn’t be surprising for a guy whose roots are firmly entrenched in PR to want a guy like Hossa to market and exploit.
The future simply doesn’t sell well to fans hungry for more. Fans want to get over the hump, and while the prudent thing would have been to keep still treading water, and replace certain guys with cheaper role players and keeping money available for your stars next season, this is not the thing that sells fans on the idea that a team is active. Instead, fans want to see action, and McDonough is all about giving the fans what they want.

So there is the rub of the situation: McDonough is so eager to please the fans that I would not put it past him to cajole Tallon into signing Hossa for PR’s sake. This insinuation isn’t too far out of the question, either. Just look at the look on Tallon’s face during the press conference yesterday announcing the signings. It was an air of brooding, quiet thoughts, and even a tint of anger. I didn’t see very much joy on his face as he stood in front of the newly stitched jerseys in the Hawks’ locker room.

To be pithy, he had the look of a man dissatisfied with what he had done, and it is not out of the realm of possibility that he was forced into doing it by a man eager to sell a product instead of advancing what is really best for the team on the ice.

This signing reeks of when the Bulls signed Ben Wallace away from the Detroit Pistons. The move was calculated as the final piece of a puzzle that was finally going to go someplace, and also was a back-handed way of derailing a Piston machine that had won often in the preceding years. The Bulls paid Wallace $15 million a year for 4 years to leave Detroit and come to the Windy City, and his signing was greeted with much fanfare and excitement.

Three years after the fact, Wallace is gone from Chicago, a complete bust that really hurt the Bulls in his short time here. They won their first playoff series with him, lost their second, and didn’t even make the playoffs in his second year with the team. He was traded away for roster fillers this past season, and represents an experiment gone wrong for the Bulls: a guy brought in to stick to another team and be the final piece in a winning formula who instead turned into a huge nusiance and object of fans’ scorn.

Could Marian Hossa be headed for the same fate as Ben Wallace? Will he be viewed with the same animosity and venom that Alfonso Soriano is looked at now by Cubs fans who want nothing less than a World Series trophy for their enormous investment in the guy? Only time will tell which way this story will turn out, but if this fable comes at the expense of losing Toews, Kane, or Keith, there will be hell to pay.

Jim Neveau is a sports blogger and aspiring journalist who has had work featured on various sites, including foxsports.com. He also writes for a Blackhawks blog entitled paintitblackhawks.com. You can email him questions or comments at jamesneveau@hotmail.com. I Hope you enjoyed this post. As always, leaving a comment below is both appreciated and encouraged. Thanks!

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