ESPN is reporting that Kane and Toews extensions are imminent, at five years/$6MM+, and the Keith extension is also close, at around 13 years/undisclosed $. Were those deals to turn out to be true, the 2010-11 Hawks would be at $55.1MM plus whatever the Keith cap hit turns out to be. Let’s assume Keith is signing a 13 year (i.e. the rest of his career) deal. He’s getting $1.9MM this year (salary). Assume he’s going to get a front-loaded deal, per the usual b.s., with a cap hit that’s going to be…at minimum…spitballing a magic number…$2.5MM. That’s the lowest I can imagine the cap hit being.
So that’s, at minimum, a cap hit of $57.6MM for next season. Over this year’s cap by about a million; and we are all assuming the cap is going to go down a bit (or a lot, depending). Oh, and then there’s the small matter of actually fielding a team…
…because that $57.6MM only buys the hawks 10 forwards, 4 defensemen and a goalie.