Brent Seabrook, Calvin de Haan ruled out for remainder of Blackhawks’ season

Brent Seabrook will have surgery on both hips in the coming months and will not play again this season. | AP Photos

The Blackhawks’ defensive depth and experience have been dealt a massive blow.

Veteran defensemen Brent Seabrook and Calvin de Haan will both miss the remainder of the 2019-20 season, the Hawks announced Thursday.

Seabrook will undergo surgery on both hips, the right side operation occurring in early January and the left side operation in early February. He’ll turn 35 in April, and already has 1,114 NHL games of wear and tear on his body, so the three-time Stanley Cup champion now faces a crucial moment in the latter stages of his career.

De Haan, meanwhile, will undergo surgery Friday on his right shoulder, his second surgery on the same location in less than a year. He spent the entire 2019 offseason and preseason rehabbing from the same operation.

The Hawks also announced Thursday that forward Brandon Saad will miss three more weeks with his ankle injury, suffered last week in Winnipeg.

De Haan’s surgery does not come as a surprise, as his injury — suffered Dec. 10 in Vegas — seemed serious from the start.

He’s still only 28 years old, but has now dealt with recurring shoulder issues throughout his career to date, and his body’s ability to hold up moving forward has to be a concern for the Hawks. The former Islanders and Hurricanes defenseman has two years left on his contract after this season.

Calvin de Haan’s first season in Chicago is over after just 29 games.

Seabrook’s diagnosis, however, arrives as a shock.

After being healthy scratched for the third time this season Dec. 18 against the Avalanche, Seabrook did not travel on the Hawks’ road trip that began the following day, and coach Jeremy Colliton said Seabrook was going to get some nagging issues checked out.

He missed the Hawks’ Monday home game, as well, and Colliton offered no details about the issues. Now, it’s clear they were major. Thursday’s announcement contained no insight on Seabrook’s status for the 2020-21 season, but he regardless has four years left on his contract even after this season.

The Hawks placed both defensemen on long-term injured reserve, joining concussed forwards Andrew Shaw and Drake Caggiula on that list, and will thus be free from their combined $11.4 million salary-cap hit for the remainder of the season.

That gives the team, which was so cap-space strapped just a few weeks ago that it played a game with 17 skaters, an immense amount of flexibility — $12.8 million worth, per Capfriendly — for the rest of the year.

Yet what exactly general manager Stan Bowman will, and should, do with that space is unclear.

All of that money is back on the books after the season, so the Hawks won’t escape their impending summer 2020 cap bind.

They could easily fit in one or two rentals with expiring contracts, such as the Devils’ Sami Vatanen or Senators’ Mark Borowiecki, but giving up assets to make that kind of trade seems short-sighted.

This news does virtually guarantee Adam Boqvist and Dennis Gilbert are NHL defensemen to stay. Boqvist will accumulate an accrued NHL season and become an unrestricted free agent in 2026, instead of 2027, if he’s on the roster for 25 of the Hawks’ 44 remaining games, but his immediate impact and development take priority over that.

But the Hawks can’t, and don’t, expect Boqvist and Gilbert to be their saviors.

The defense entered the holiday break allowing the second-most scoring chances in the league, and is now without two of its most battle-tested defensive defensemen and vocal leaders.

Thursday’s news could eventually prove to be one of the biggest nails in the Hawks’ 2019-20 coffin.