Blackhawks GM Stan Bowman on NHL draft, free agency and pressure to return to the playoffs
CHICAGO - The Blackhawks have failed to make the playoffs in consecutive seasons and their closest rivals, the Blues, are on the cusp of winning their first Stanley Cup.
But with the No. 3 pick in the draft and roughly $20 million in salary-cap space, according to capfriendly.com, Hawks general manager Stan Bowman is decidedly optimistic about the future.
Bowman sat down with the Chicago Tribune for a 30-minute interview to discuss a variety of topics. The interview has been edited for clarity.
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Chicago Tribune: Two months after the season is over, what different conclusions have you perhaps realized now?
Stan Bowman: I'm not sure there's any big revelations. There was a natural transition period with a new coach coming in, and it took awhile to get going with the way we wanted to play successfully under Jeremy (Colliton). Once we did that I thought we got our footing.
We're an offensive team so we don't want to try to change our game and suddenly have trouble scoring. But we need to shore up the areas where we struggled. The penalty kill was one and goals against, those are the two things. That hasn't changed from our initial assessment. We've had some time to figure out how we're going to do that.
(New assistant coach Marc Crawford) explained how (his former team, the Senators) made some big changes in mid-November and from that point on they were top five in the league in the
