Everyone knew, even moments after the Hawks won the Stanley Cup, that they’d have to make major deals due to salary cap issues. GM Stan Bowman explains further:
’’I’ve tried to warn our fans that this team that they’ve fallen in love with wasn’t going to stay together,‘’ Bowman said. "But no championship team does. It’s kind of the nature of the world that we’re in. We’re doing the best we can to keep our core together, to make sure that we’re going to maintain ourselves as a competitive team year-to-year and to give ourselves the flexibility to go into a number of different directions. We’ve certainly done that."
Bowman also talks about one of the players acquired, Viktor Stalberg:
Stalberg, 24, is the only one of the three acquired players with NHL experience. He made his debut last season, leading Toronto rookies with nine goals and 14 points in 40 games. Paradis is a former first-round selection of the Carolina Hurricanes in 2009.
“We’re very high on the three players we acquired,” Bowman said. "They bring different things to the table, each one of them. They’re at different points of their progression. Stalberg is an NHL player. We love his speed, his size. We think he’s going to complement some of the great playmakers on our team.
“In the game today, you have to be able to skate, and he’s got the size and the skating. I think when you put him with some guys that can make plays, he’s got a lot of potential. The two young kids that we got have a little bit of everything in terms of competitiveness, skill [and] physical play. They battle hard.”