Blackhawks Re-Sign Two for Depth

The Chicago Blackhawks didn't have a great deal of work to do with their restricted free agent crop, with very few of their key roster players under the age of 27 in need of deals. In actual fact, they really only had two key players that fell into this category and before the Draft on Friday, they were re-signed.

The Blackhawks gave 2-year deals to both forward Ben Smith and goaltender Antti Raanta, taking care of a couple priorities this Summer.  Smith's deal is reportedly worth $3 million and Raanta's is worth $1.5 million, sewing up a couple of key depth players for reasonable cost.

Out of the two, the most pool-worthy is Raanta, who acts as Corey Crawford's back-up in the season.  In the 2014 season, Raanta finished 41st among all goalies in pool scoring, winning 13 games and picking up 29 points on the year.  The 25-year old Finn could act as a decent late-round goaltender option, if you have decided to run with more forwards and defense on your team.

Smith, on the other hand, didn't rank up with the pool-worthy forwards, finishing 215th among his comrades at the position, scoring 14 goals and 26 points in 75 games.  With how the Blackhawks are setup still, it does seem unlikely that his ice-time will improve to help boost his numbers.

The Blackhawks are in cap trouble.  According to their projected roster, I have them in with 19 players and a cap hit of $67.3 million.  They currently have 11 forwards, six defensemen and their goaltending tandem sorted, but they could really use a couple more forwards and a defenseman and we still haven't seen what the final cap number is going to be.

Rumours are abound that Patrick Sharp may be the name that opens up some space in this off-season, as his $5.9 million cap hit may be the easiest to move in a deal.