Brent Seabrook, drafted 14th overall by the Chicago Blackhawks themselves, is a part of the team’s championship core – and they want to make sure he knows it, too. The team did not release the financial terms of the deal but Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports that it will pay Seabrook a total of $54.8 million.
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The 2015-16 season will mark Seabrook’s first as alternate captain. The deal may look ugly as Seabrook enters his mid to late thirties, but it keeps the team with solid top pairing defensemen and should all but guarantee that Seabrook pulls off the rare feat of playing for just a single team in his career.
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In the past two months, salary-cap issues forced the Blackhawks to part ways with the likes of Patrick Sharp, Brandon Saad and Johnny Oduya, key players during their run to the Cup. His last contract was for five years and $29 million. Without seeing the cap go up at all, that leaves little room to sign the rest of the roster, not even counting the fact that Marcus Kruger will be an RFA again (only this time, he’ll be joined by Andrew Shaw). With their experience and leadership capabilities, it would be hard to count them out. “So, he [already] was one of them”. They could be setting themselves up for another round of tough decisions when young players like Teuvo Teravainen, Marko Dano and Andrew Shaw are up for new deals in the coming years. “If you don’t have someone like that … you’re looking for the exact same player”.
