When the Maple Leafs re-signed John-Michael Liles, the prevailing thought was that Mikhail Grabovski was about to become a cap casualty. Liles took less than $4 million to stay in Toronto, putting next year's cap space at slightly over $11 million. The problem was that Keith Aulie, Cody Franson, and Nikolai Kulemin become restricted free agents in line for raises, and Jonas Gustavsson becomes an unrestricted free agent.

Grabovski will likely make close to $5 million, so to keep Grabovski in the fold the Leafs need some creative cap management, especially if they hope to make other improvements to the squad.

Because of the shrinking cap space and Grabovski's soon-to-be free agent status, his name has inevitably popped up in trade rumours. And unless there's some unlikely fantasy scenario where Ryan Getzlaf comes back the other way, in no way does a Grabovski deal help the Leafs.

Almost immediately after Jonathan Toews hoisted the Stanley Cup for the Chicago Blackhawks the vultures descended upon the team and began to pillage the champs. Chicago’s cap crunch was well documented and every team with a competent GM knew there were players to be had on the cheap.

The Hawks have already traded Dustin Byfuglien, Ben Eager, Brent Sopel, Andrew Ladd, and Kris Versteeg from their championship roster and almost lost RFA Niklas Hjalmarsson to the San Jose Sharks. Plus, John Madden, who is a UFA, won’t be re-signed. Additionally, Antti Niemi is going to arbitration and will certainly receive a large raise from the $800,000 he made last year. If the contract he’s awarded is too large it is entirely possible that the Hawks will walk away from the decision and attempt to sign another goalie for a cheaper salary.

Even after the Hawks bury Christobal Huet’s $5.625 million in the minors they will have a very small amount of money to fill out at least 5 roster spots. According to Tim Sassone of Chicago’s Daily Herald, the Hawks have 15 players under contract for $59.3 million (including Stanley Cup bonuses), while the cap limit is $59.4 million. Without Huet, Chicago's cap space isn’t even $6 million.

The Hawks will still be one of the best teams in the league next year because they have Kane, Toews, Hossa, Sharp, Bolland, Keith, Seabrook, and Campbell, but they will find it very hard to repeat as Stanley Cup Champions because they lack the tremendous depth that made them so successful last season. It’s also entirely possible that the Hawks will have to trade another player like Sharp to get under the cap, so I don’t see them repeating.

With the Hawks set to slip from their lofty perch it seems the Western Conference will send a completely different team to the Stanley Cup Final. It won’t be San Jose because even though they’ll be good, they’ll still be San Jose. The best team in the Western Conference, and likely the entire NHL, will be the most overrated team of the past two seasons - a team which is now probably underrated due to two straight second round beat-downs.

Burke’s speedy re-tooling of the Toronto Maple Leafs took a step forward this week. On the eve of free agency, Burke took advantage of the cap constrained Chicago Blackhawks and acquired Kris Versteeg and prospect Bill Sweatt in exchange for Viktor Stalberg, Phillippe Paradis, and Chris DiDomenico.

The Chicago Blackhawks announced a trio of signings today and, in the process, solidified their competitiveness for the foreseeable future. The Hawks signed Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews to identical 5-year deals worth $6.3 million per season, while signing Duncan Keith to a monster 13-year deal worth $5.5 million per season. While signing these three players was absolutely essential for the Hawks, the deals do come with some negative consequences.

The first negative is the Hawks' dwindling cap space. This is a product of some questionable deals made by Dale Tallon a few years ago. The major problem is Brian Campbell and his salary of $7+ million per year. Oh, there’s still six years left after this season. Campbell isn’t playing horribly. He has 14 points and is plus-6, although he only has one goal. However, if you’re paying a player over $7 million a season you’d like more production than that. The second problem is Christobal Huet, who is making over $5.5 million for the next two seasons. His production is acceptable and solid goaltending doesn’t come cheap, but this isn’t the best contract. The Hawks cap issue is also compounded by the Marian Hossa signing. Hossa is an awesome talent, but at the time I thought that signing would create trouble for the Hawks both in the immediate future (now) and in the long term (since Hossa is signed for 12 years—until he is 42). These signings created the cap problems the Hawks now face.

There are rumours that the team president, John McDonough, pushed these free agent signings because he didn’t believe the young Hawks were ready to take the next step without help. The media savvy McDonough also desired to make a large splash in the Chicago sports market. It may have been prudent to wait, since the young Hawks such as Toews, Kane, Keith, Cam Barker, Brent Seabrook, Kris Versteeg, Dustin Byfuglien and Dave Bolland have progressed so rapidly. Although Chicago was the laughingstock of the league for over a decade, so I can’t entirely fault the management for wanting to create a winner at the first opportunity. And if the Hawks are able to win the Stanley Cup this year then the moves will be successful. However, if the Hawks are unable to achieve the Stanley Cup they will not have the same team to make another deep run next spring.