Jim Kelley

Jim Kelley writes regularly on the NHL for Sportsnet.ca and can be heard on Primetime Sports on the FAN590.

Doug Wilson.

Let’s play a little of my favorite summer pastime, the "what if" game and ask ourselves, "what if the San Jose Sharks take a run at Chicago Blackhawks Stanley Cup winning goaltender Antti Niemi?"

It’s not outside the realm of possibility when you consider that earlier this month the Sharks cleared goalie Evgeni Nabokov’s big ticket contract when they opted not to re-sign him and even though they’ve inked Tampa’s Antero Niittymaki for considerably fewer dollars and are making noises about playing prospect Thomas Greiss some, it’s not a stretch to imagine that they could both improve themselves and further weaken the Blackhawks by making an offer for the restricted Chicago netminder that the Hawks can’t match.

It’s a new spin on the old "addition by subtraction" bromide that has long held sway in the NHL, and besides, it’s not like the Sharks haven’t done it –at least in part—already.

In making a bid for restricted free agent defenceman Niklas Hjalmarsson, the Sharks didn’t get their man, but they made an already difficult post-Cup life fiscally more difficult for Chicago general manager Stan Bowman. In matching San Jose’s four-year, $14 million offer to Hjalmarsson, one could argue Bowman did what he needed to do, but we saw two significant things happen.

One, the annual rush to protest what was thought to be a hands-off situation produced nary a whimper out of the hockey community outside of Chicago. Where once GMs were vilified –see Bob Clarke and Kevin Lowe as two of the primary examples—for making restricted free agent offers even though the ability to do so has been on the books for years, it appears it has now become an accepted, if not overwhelmingly typical, practice.

That wasn’t the case when Lowe went after Buffalo Sabres scoring star Thomas Vanek (failed) and Anaheim Ducks forward Dustin Penner (successful on paper, maybe not so much on the ice) and the majority of GMs struck a "woe is us" chorus if such "poaching" were to continue. In response to the San Jose offer (something one Chicago writer characterized as an attempt to "steal" Hjalmarsson), Bowman simply matched it and noted that it was part of the collective bargaining agreement, though he did seem to add a bitter "it was a surprise" and that "it doesn’t seem to happen much."

But it does happen and that brings us to point No.2: it can be used as a tactic.

No doubt San Jose GM Doug Wilson needs and wants Hjalmarsson or someone like him, and though the offer seemed high for a 23-year-old, it is the consensus of many in the NHL that Hjalmarsson is already a Top 4 defenceman on pretty much any squad and that he’ll undoubtedly get even better as he matures.

But look how it impacts the Hawks, a team that had already overspent in recent seasons and has had to trim six players, including much of its secondary scoring, in order to just begin to fit under the cap for next season while signing and preparing to sign players who expect and deserve a significant raise for their Cup-winning efforts.

By most reports, the Hawks have only about $100,000 in cap space as of this week and still have to sign Niittymaki and perhaps five others plus prepare for extensions for the likes of Cup heroes Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Duncan Keith and others.

They may well still achieve that goal, especially if they can bury goalie Cristobol Huet and his $5 million-plus contract in the minors or overseas and somehow trade defenceman Brian Campbell and his near $8 million per-year deal, but that will take time. Meanwhile, Niemi is headed to an arbitration hearing later this month and there is the thought that perhaps the Sharks or some other team could move to force something akin to the deal the Montreal Canadiens had to take in moving their playoff hero, goalie Jaroslav Halak, to the St. Louis Blues.

San Jose could make that happen. An offer sheet to Hjalmarsson was a no-loss, no-risk move for the Sharks, but it saddles the Blackhawks with a contract they likely would not have offered their D-man at this time, especially when they have to deal with Niemi who made just under $900,000 last season and will likely be looking to more than double or quadruple that amount in arbitration. He could do even better (and possibility avoid arbitration and what would likely be a short-term deal) should he get a restricted offer sheet.

If it doesn’t go Chicago’s way in arbitration or in their own negotiations with Niemi, the club could be caught in a downward salary cap spiral bigger than the one that has already engulfed it. One so deep, they could be forced to move the goalie as well.

Now there could be a way out of all this for the Blackhawks if the league would just accept Toronto general manager Brian Burke’s proposal to allow teams to eat some salary when trading off a contract that no longer fits their needs. That would make it infinitely easier to move Huet and certainly Campbell and at least help manage cap problems. As GMs see the bind Chicago is in and that they could just as easily be in, you might think there would be a movement to support Burke’s plan.

There may be, but it will go nowhere by the time it gets to the league offices in New York. Commissioner Gary Bettman has repeatedly and somewhat forcibly said "no" to Burke every time Burke’s brought it up and his reasoning is solid. The whole idea of the CBA was to rein in cost via lower contract offers and if the better monied clubs are allowed to eat money to cover their mistakes, they’ll go right on making them.

One could argue that the Blackhawks under both Dale Tallon and Bowman didn’t even make any mistakes, that they knew what they were doing when they (mostly Tallon), but with the blessing of upper management and ownership) threw around money they knew would come back to bite them. One could argue that they did it anyway with the idea that if they went all-in to win the Cup they could rebuild the brand in Chicago and if they did that, they could worry about the consequences later.

Having an out like eating portions of contracts would be a benefit. As it stands, Bettman is against it with the idea being that costs can be contained only if the GMs are prudent in their dealings. Allowing clubs to eat money goes against that and you can be relatively certain Bettman and company will be fighting to get rid of the loophole that allows clubs to bury salaries in the minors (where they don’t count against the Cap) as well.

It may not seem like it was that big a deal when San Jose went after Hjalmarsson, but the ripple effect is huge and not just for the Blackhawks.

Maybe Conn Smythe was right when he said "if you can’t beat them in the alley you can’t beat them on the ice," only maybe what he should have said was that if you can’t beat them on the ice, maybe you can weaken them with a well thought out offer sheet that will bring them to their knees and narrow the gap in conference competition.

Doug Wilson appears to have already done that. The question now is whether or not he or another team in the West will do it again.

The Blackhawks can only hold their breath and maybe pray that doesn’t happen.