The Blackhawks finally added another depth defenseman to the system Thursday, signing former Capitals and Red Wings defenseman Madison Bowey.
Bowey’s two-year contract is two-way for this season — and he was on waivers Thursday, so he’ll likely be assigned to either the taxi squad or the AHL on Friday — but becomes one-way next season. It carries an extremely manageable $725,000 cap hit.
Bowey, 25, is actually rather experienced, though. He’s appeared in 154 NHL games versus only 10 AHL games over the past three seasons.
The 6-2, 202-pound Winnipeg native tallied three goals and 14 assists in 53 games for Detroit last year, but he also carried an ugly 42.6% on-ice scoring chance ratio (although that was fairly typical for the Wings).
He was a second-round draft pick by Washington in 2013 and previously considered a somewhat decent prospect.
It seemed plausible for a while that the Hawks would bolster their organizational defensive depth, as they entered Thursday with only 13 defensemen under NHL contract and two of those (Brent Seabrook with a back injury and Adam Boqvist with COVID-19) currently out. Plus, only three (Connor Murphy, Ian Mitchell and Alec Regula) of the 11 active are right-handed shots like Bowey.
The Rockford IceHogs opened their training camp this week with only eight total defensemen, and only three of those on NHL contracts.
But the biggest benefit derived from signing Bowey, and the obvious reason why his contract is for two years, is the upcoming Seattle expansion draft.
Every team, including the Hawks, will be required to expose at least one experienced defenseman; Bowey will meet those experience parameters after just one more NHL game, per CapFriendly. He’d be a no-brainer for exposure.
Murphy is the only other defenseman eligible for exposure who currently meets those parameters. Nikita Zadorov would meet them once re-signed for next season, and Calvin de Haan would meet them if he plays in 32 of the Hawks’ remaining 48 games, but the Hawks may well want to protect all three of those guys — or also look to trade one or two for future assets before the April 12 trade deadline.
