Tallon: We’ll try and keep them together

Dale Tallon tells Barry Rozner that he thought about moving free agent to be Nikolai Khabibulin and is obviously glad he didn’t. Tallon said ”You don’t know when your opportunity is going to come.”

Tallon’s job will be extra tough this off-season, he will try to keep his roster together despite pending free agents Kahbibulin, Martin Havlat, and Samuel Pahlsson. Tallon has to balance re-signing those key players while dealing with the escalating salaries for younger stars Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane.

Gone are the days of speculation surrounding Tallon’s job security, it surely appears he gets to keep his job, now can he keep his team together?

 

As the Hawks continue to advance, it might be changing Tallon’s mind about certain players he had no intention of keeping.

“That’s true. It does change things,” Tallon said of the last couple weeks. “People prove things to you. As we win more, we think more about who’s here now and what it means for the future.”

“I’d love to keep Sammy (Pahlsson), too. I’d love to stand here now and say we’re going to keep everyone,” Tallon said, as he looked around at a happy dressing room. “The reality is we’ll try to keep them together as best we can and keep as many as we can.

“The problem isn’t next year. The problem is the year after that when we have (Duncan) Keith and the kids (Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane) up.”

So for any of the current free agents to stay, the contracts would have to be lengthy and front-loaded, thoughts that travel through Tallon’s mind during each and every game, after each and every whistle.

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