In the months following the Blackhawks’ Stanley Cup championship in 2010 general manager Stan Bowman took a flamethrower to the roster that had captured the organization’s first title in 49 years. The salary cap-induced purge resulted in 10 players from the Cup winners headed elsewhere. Subsequently the ’10-11 Hawks never fully recovered as they barely slipped into the playoffs with the eighth seed in the Western Conference before departing in the first round at the hands of the Canucks. In the aftermath of the Hawks’ 2013 Cup Bowman has been wielding a pen and during the offseason has invested $72.5 million to bolster the team’s core. The latest signing is defenseman Niklas Hjalmarsson who agreed to terms on a five-year contract extension Wednesday worth a reported $20.5 million. The signing came two days after goaltender Corey Crawford agreed to a six-year extension worth $36 million. Earlier in the summer winger Bryan Bickell inked a four-year contract worth $16 million. That makes 14 current Hawks under contract with the team through the 2014-15 season. “When you’ve been through something before in any walk of life the second time around you know what to expect” Bowman said. “You see the challenges you faced last time. We have the advantage this time of having more chemistry out of the gate. We have a similar team to what we had a few months ago. On top of that … players are aware of what we went through last time and they’re going to be committed we start the season better and put ourselves in a better spot.” Hjalmarsson’s extension which will kick in after ’13-14 and carry a cap hit of $4.1 million locks in six of the Hawks’ seven defensive mainstays for two more seasons. Only Sheldon Brookbank will become a free agent after next season. “It’s a little different since … we won in 2010 when pretty much half the team got split up” Hjalmarsson said. “We still have a lot of guys left here from last year. We can’t really complain about anything (because) we have pretty much the same team.” - See more at: http://www.chicagotribune.com/sport...s-niklas-hjalmarsson-20130904,0,5135482.story
