Blackhawks @ Avalanche IGT March 12 @ 8:30

[HawkWriter]

Bowman has overall been a good GM he just hasn't made too many smart decisions since we won the cup last summer

So overall he has been a good GM but he aslo blows? That doesn't make much sense.

If he doesn't trade Bolland and Frolik...he is going to have to get rid of that money somehow. Sure, maybe it could have been Bickell but one guy still has to go. Bickell at $4mil is not a good deal...not based on the playoffs alone. Sure he can show up in the playoffs, but at $4mil a year the Blackhawks need Bickell to produce in the regular season and help position the team for the playoffs. He hasn't done that this year. From what I was told, Montreal was thinking about Bickell pretty hard when things were getting close but their staff felt that he would go back to playing "scared" in the regular season and wouldn't be worth the money he was going to command.

I think the Versteeg trade was a damn good one. Versteeg at a cap hit of $2.2mil is pretty solid. I was never a fan of Jimmy Hayes and Olsen definitely fell out of favor and dropped on the Dmen prospect list.

At the end of the day, most people consider Holland and Poile to be two of the better GMs out there...but I think most would take the team Bowman helped build (credit has to go to others as well, just like with every GM) over those two for now and the future.

 

[DMelt36]

Just like how he traded away Bolland and Frolik, signed Bulin, traded Pirri to Florida for pencil shavings, traded Olsen and Hayes to Florida for Versteeg, giving Crawford and Bickell too much money, trading picks for Regin and Bouchard and letting Bieber step on our Hawks logo. Blowman Blows!

Bolland and Frolik were 4th liners. He got a total of FIVE draft picks in return. That's a steal.
The Bulin signing wasn't great, no. Got lucky that you can leave his cap hit on LTIR permanently.
Pirri was a 2nd round pick and yielded a 3rd and 5th in return. I'd say that's pretty close to an equal trade. And there's no guarantee that Pirri will pan out in Florida, either.
Olsen and Hayes were simply never going to play on the big club in Chicago. There was no room for them. And don't forget that he got Florida to pay half of Versteeg's salary in that deal.
The Crawford and Bickell deals seem high now, but wait til that salary cap goes up in a few years and see what kind of contracts players are getting in FA in the next few seasons. I'll put good money on these deals being right around market value.
And, finally, can we let Regin get more than 5 games before you declare him no good?

I really have no idea where people get off trashing Bowman as a GM. He navigated the Hawks through Salary Cap Hell after the first Cup win and got them to another title three years later. And he's done that without losing a single key player. NOT ONE. In the salary cap era, that's damn near wizardry.

He deserves the benefit of the doubt with every move.