Stan Bowman’s Unique Strengths and Weaknesses as GM

Despite last-minute rumours to the contrary, Jeff Jackson surprised nobody by hiring Stan Bowman as the new General Manager of the Edmonton Oilers late last month.

Bowman, of course, won three Stanley Cups as GM of the Chicago Blackhawks in 2010, 2013, and 2015. He was also part of the leadership group that covered up and failed to investigate the sexual assault of player Kyle Beach by video coach Brad Aldrich in 2010. Not only did this failure to act cause Beach to be traumatized and ostracized on his way out of the NHL, it also allowed Aldrich to go on to coach a high school hockey team in Michigan, where he allegedly sexually assaulted a member of his team.

Bowman carries a lengthy track record as an NHL GM, filling the position in Chicago from 2009 to 2021. In that time, he won three Stanley Cups, while also overseeing the decline and end of the Blackhawks’ dynasty in the second half of his tenure. Today, we’ll analyze some of the key moves from Bowman’s time in Chicago to find out his biggest strengths and weaknesses as a General Manager.

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Twin Mega-deals

July 9, 2014 – signed F Jonathan Toews and F Patrick Kane to eight-year, $84M extensions.

Entering the summer of 2014, Bowman’s first order of business was to re-sign the faces of the franchise, Toews and Kane. They signed matching eight-year extensions, with AAVs of 10.5 million dollars. Taking up just under 30% of the cap together, the twin megadeals look pretty good nowadays.

Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews’ record-breaking deals that kicked in in 2018 and 2024, respectively, both took up over 15% of the cap in their first years. But Bowman couldn’t manage the cap with these two massive deals on the ledger, and the team never won a Cup with the two deals in effect (they kicked in in 2015-16). While Bowman’s quick action in re-signing the two superstars bodes well for upcoming Draisaitl and McDavid deals, it’s worrying that he never could build a winner around those two big cap hits.

The Cap Dumps

One of the clearest patterns of Bowman’s tenure in Chicago was one of frequent summer trades to get under the salary cap. These started right after winning the first of three Cups in 2010, when Bowman sent out Dustin Byfuglien, Andrew Ladd, and Kris Versteeg. Brian Campbell, Troy Brouwer, Tomas Kopecky, Dave Bolland, Michael Frolik, Nick Leddy, and Andrew Shaw were all traded away in subsequent summers. Outside of getting a late first-round pick that turned into Danault in exchange for Brouwer, none of these trades garnered anything particularly useful in return.

Savvy Drafting

When you’re running a Cup contender and trying to stay competitive in a tough cap situation, extracting talent from the draft is extremely important. Bowman hit on his late first-round picks in five consecutive seasons from 2010 to 2014, selecting Kevin Hayes (pick 24), the aforementioned Danault (26), Teuvo Teravainen (18), Ryan Hartman (30), and Nick Schmaltz (20) during the team’s Cup window. Even better, Bowman found talent in the later rounds as well, selecting Brandon Saad and Andrew Shaw in the second and fifth rounds in 2011, as well as Vinny Hinostroza in 2012 and Tyler Motte in 2013. His biggest coup was selecting Alex DeBrincat in the second round with pick #39 in 2016.

Trading Away Young Forwards

You may be asking yourself: “wait, I don’t remember any of those guys on the Blackhawks!” Well, that’s because of one of Bowman’s biggest weaknesses in Chicago: for all of his success at the draft, many of those players didn’t stick around to make an impact. Hayes never signed with the Blackhawks, and went to the New York Rangers after wrapping up his college career. Danault was traded along with a second round pick (that later became Alexander Romanov) to Montreal for Thomas Fleischmann and Shaw in 2016. Teravainen was sent to Carolina later that year for second and third round picks in a Bryan Bickell cap dump.

Among non-first rounders, Brandon Saad was shipped off to Columbus for a package including centre Artem Anisimov and busted prospect Marko Dano in 2015. Anisimov was signed to a five year extension worth $4.55 million annually, and never scored more than 45 points in Chicago. Saad was of course re-acquired two years later, in exchange for 2016 Calder Trophy winner Artemi Panarin. Panarin, coming off consecutive 70 point seasons beside Kane, became a superstar with the Columbus Blue Jackets before becoming one of the best wingers in the game for the New York Rangers. Saad never hit 50 points in a season again.

Which leads us to…

Lots of Re-Acquisitions

This is neither good nor bad, just kind of strange. Bowman loves trading for guys he’s traded away. Ladd, Versteeg, Shaw, Saad, Campbell, Johnny Oduya, and Patrick Sharp all did two tours of duty in Chicago, each of them faring much worse in their second stints. It would be prudent for Bowman to avoid this pattern in Edmonton.

Overseas Signings

One big positive of Bowman’s later years in Chicago was signing useful players out of European leagues. While Panarin’s Blackhawks’ tenure ended on a sour note, signing the slight Russian winger to a two-year contract coming off a breakout year in the KHL turned out exceptionally well. Apart from that, Czech winger Dominik Kubalik scored 30 goals in his first year in Chicago, while Swiss centre Pius Suter has carved out a role for himself as a solid checking forward. For a team up against the cap, finding talent on the margins is of utmost importance.

July 23, 2021 – traded D Adam Boqvist, Chicago’s first round pick (#12 – Cole Sillinger) in the 2021 NHL Draft, Chicago’s second round pick in 2021 (#43 – Aleksi Heimosalmi) and Chicago’s first round pick in the 2022 NHL Draft (#6 – David Jiricek) to Columbus for D Seth Jones and Tampa Bay’s first round pick in the 2021 NHL Draft (#32 – Nolan Allan).

July 28, 2021 – signed D Seth Jones to an eight-year, $76M extension.

This is bad enough to warrant its own section. In his last summer in Chicago, Bowman left the Blackhawks with a parting gift. Despite the team’s recent downturn and bleak outlook, he sent two high first round picks for Seth Jones, whose sterling reputation far outstripped his underlying statistics. At the time, Bowman said he would only have acquired Jones if he thought he could extend him, which he did. With a full year before he hit free agency, and before he ever played a game with the Blackhawks, Jones signed an eight-year deal worth $9.5 million annually, to take effect the next season. Jones hasn’t come anywhere close to living up to the deal, putting up truly horrible advanced stats in his first couple years in Chicago. With the Blackhawks in an aggressive rebuild, their future sure would look brighter with Sillinger and Jiricek in the fold, and current GM Kyle Davidson will have to work around Jones’ contract to build his team around Connor Bedard.

Acquiring Veteran Contributors

With the team in cap hell in 2012-13 and 2014-15, Bowman needed to find cheap, useful contributors to help his team to the Stanley Cup. In 2013, those came in the forms of veteran defensemen Oduya and Michal Roszival, centre Martin Handzus, and backup goalie Ray Emery. With an embarrassment of riches at the top of the roster, the team just needed to stay afloat at the bottom of the lineup, and those four performed admirably. In 2015, centres Brad Richards and Antoine Vermette provided depth scoring while Kimmo Timonen joined Oduya on the blueline to capture his first Cup in his final season.

As we’ve seen, Stan Bowman is far from a perfect GM. His Chicago teams were constantly cap-strapped and lost multiple current and future NHL contributors for nothing, and when the decline came it was ugly.

But he did win three Stanley Cups, even if they did come with a core that was already built by the time he sat in the big chair. Luckily, that’s exactly the position he steps into in Edmonton, and he’s proven adept at pushing teams over the finish line and keeping them in contending form for long enough to pick up a few rings. If he can continue his success in filling in roster gaps for cheap, picking out underrated talent in the draft, and keeping the core together, he might be just enough to bring a Stanley Cup (or three) to Edmonton.

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