Prospective Look at Chicago

It's fair enough to say that the building blocks are in place in Chicago and potential is running quite high, while expectations are running just a few steps behind. If the Blackhawks want to make a good run with the signed regulars listed below, a couple of them may have to be trimmed to open up some crucial cap space for some new additions. The Blackhawks have plenty of minor league talent to fill up some spots for next season, but those players won't likely be enough to keep the team above the 8th place cut-off in the West.

Forwards	Defense	Goaltenders
Patrick Kane	Duncan Keith	Nikolai Khabibulin
Patrick Sharp	Brent Seabrook
Jonathan Toews	Brent Sopel
Robert Lang	Cam Barker
Martin Havlat
Craig Adams

Both Nikolai Khabibulin and Martin Havlat are considered overpaid weights on the team's payroll. Khabibulin will earn $6.75 million, while Havlat will earn an even $6 million, which brings next season's approximate total up to $37.9 million for those 11 players. If these two players can be trimmed from the roster, which doesn't seem overly likely, the Blackhawks could go on a bit of a spending spree to give some help to Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane.

There is also some hope that a player like Jack Skille can make the jump to the big show and provide a spark to the offense to help win a couple more games.

Among other concerns, there is a good number of free agents that the team will likely have to give a good look to in the off-season. Andrew Ladd, Rene Bourque, James Wisniewski and Dustin Byfuglien are all headlining the restricted free agent class of 2008, all of which are up for a raise in their salaries. That in it's own right is a big concern, especially with the cap space and the need for more players on their active roster.

Draft-wise, the Blackhawks sit just outside of the Top 10 picks in 11th. It's not a bad pick, but it isn't a Kane-like or a Toews-like pick, where you already know what's going to happen with it. Still, it should still be a good building block pick to go along with the rest of them. The Hawks could be a team that would go after a top-end goaltender, since they are few and far between in the system in Chicago.