The Blackhawks Convention opened Friday with club president John McDonough hearing boos for his decision to fire general manager Dale Tallon earlier this week. But those boos didn’t last long.
McDonough immediately tackled the Tallon issue Saturday during a well-attended question-and-answer session with fans on the second day of the convention at the Hilton Chicago.(source-Chicago Sun Times)
It’s been a popular opinion that McDonough wanted Tallon out of the way in order to receive more credit for the ‘Hawks revival, but with a first overall pick to select Pat Kane in 2007 and third overall pick the previous year to select John Toews, you have to ask yourself “how much credit is there to go around”? Let’s be honest here, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel to select Kane and Toews. Drafting Zetterberg 210th overall and Datsyuk 171st overall in Detroit is worthy of credit as far as that goes. Tallon does deserve a lot of credit for the trade acquiring Patrick Sharp from the Flyers, but unfortunately Sharp might be on the way out to make cap space, a huge loss for the ‘Hawks…
The fact that they will have cap issues trying to sign them this off season might have had more to do with Tallon being let go then McDonough’s ego did. Unless you figure that Marian Hossa is going to make the difference in Chicago winning the Cup this season (he was invisible in the finals this year for Detroit, but it’s speculated that it was McDonough behind getting him), it was questionable to tie up so much cap space in signing him with the talent they already had, never mind the talent they’ll need to sign with that cap space he’s occupying.