The Chicago Blackhawks are finding ways to make sure they can keep some players from last season’s Stanley Cup championship team. NHL salary-guru site Cap Geek is reporting that part-time defenseman Jordan Hendry will re-sign with the the Blackhawks for one year at $600,000.
Should that pan out to be the case, this gives the Blackhawks six NHL-ready defensemen to start the year. Meanwhile everyone waits for the eventual announcement that goaltender Cristobal Huet will be put on waivers to be sent to the AHL to help fix Chicago’s salary cap situation.
Eliminating Cristobal Huet’s $5.625 million cap hit gives the Blackhawks around $2.5 million in cap space. While you can’t expect them to go fishing for someone too pricey, expect that Chicago will fill out their depth at forward with the likes of veteran depth players like Jeff Taffe ($550,000) or with younger players like Igor Makarov ($552,500) or Kyle Beach ($1.17 million). Defenseman Ian Vishnevskiy, acquired from Atlanta for Dustin Byfuglien, figures in as a possible solution to defensive depth.
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