Yesterday afternoon, I was unfortunately suckered into beating my head against a wall, 140 characters at a time, through Twatter. I have maintained that while Twatter can be useful for things like promoting business and media, it's basically the gutter of human existence. It's either people bitching about their inconsequential lives, or people holding incredibly narcissistic and passive aggressive conversations for the whole world to see. But, I digress...
I have to say that if the major problem in the Blackhawks world is our forth line winger, life isn't so bad. Let's be honest here. The reason I got suckered into this ordeal is one particular theory, "Common Sense". I'll be the first to tell you that while I'm sarcastic, stubborn, and cocky, I've been known to change my stance from time to time, because of said common sense. I can't possibly see every scenario, and solution; no one can. This is not one of those situations, and again, if you could care less about the Blackhawks fourth line winger that plays 3-6 minutes a game, feel free to ditch this thing, right here...
Still with me? Onward, Satan's Soldiers. The situation in question involves the subject of Rostislav "Rosty" Olesz vs John "Big Slow" Scott. Forgive me; I was baited; It was on my train ride home; There was an earthquake; A great flood; Locusts; IT WASN'T MY FAULT!
That was your last chance to bail on me, so for the three readers I have left, let's continue. I am going to lay out some FACTS, here, before I even get started:
- Olesz is faster, and more talented overall than Scott, by a pretty large margin.
- Olesz has 132 points in 351 NHL games, at 26 years old. John Scott has 4 points in 115 NHL games, at 29 years old.
- Preseason or not, he scored the first goal of the year for the Hawks.
- Olesz has had injuries in the past, and is coming off a blown out knee, but appears to be healthy. If he's not healthy, the LTIR is the place for him.
- Scott is tremendously limited, physically. He can tenderize faces, and that is all.
- Once Mayers, CarBomb, Lepisto and O'Donnell were signed, it effectively took any role Scott had, and rendered him useless.
I'm not going to name names, because that's irrelevant, but a person or two sparked up a "conversation" that basically started as, "The Hawks can work around John Scott, but there is no way to work around Olesz, because he is void of any hockey talent". Not quite in those words, because you can't fit that much sarcasm into 140 characters, but you get the gist of it. You might imagine how I responded to THAT revelation. There were theories floated, but when it came down to simple business and common sense, there is no way around the fact that the Blackhawks need to play Olesz. Why, you ask? I was hoping you'd never ask:
Theory 1:Send Olesz to Rockford/SiberiaNothing else is possible. End of story. This team is stuck with him for the season. Might as well play him, and see if we can't squeeze some lemonade out of this lemon.
Result:FAIL
First of all, he would need to pass through waivers for Rockford, and surely would. Second, The Blackhawks as an organization, are eating $5.625 million for Cristobal Huet to NOT play anywhere in North America. Which, in and of itself, is a very bitter pill to swallow for any company. If you add Olesz's $3.125 million, and the team, AS AN ORGANIZATION, would be dishing out almost $9 million for 2 players to NOT play for their team. Remember, This does not reflect on the salary cap at all, but you're asking a business to hemorrhage millions MORE than they already are. While Huet was in a critical position, and needed to be moved for cap reasons, Olesz does/is not. He can be hidden on the forth line, and they have enough cap room to maneuver, if needed.
Theory 2:Buy out his contract
Result:FAIL
You can only buy out a players contract during the designated period of time, which is usually between June 15th and June 30th. I don't need to remind anyone what the date is today. Pull out all your trust-dusty contract buyout calculators, but none of it can be done until June of 2012.
Theory 3:Trade Olesz
Result:FAIL
In a perfect world, Stan Bowman could sell that rust bucket to some ignorant kid, but no one is buying that set of wheels without taking on another, equally as obnoxious, overpriced contract in return. If you know of someone that will, PLEASE e-mail Stan and let him know.
