The negotiations for the Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews contract extensions were relatively painless, all things considered. Blackhawks GM Stan Bowman met with agent Pat Brisson at the draft last year in Philadelphia and the two sides got a pretty clear indication of where things stood.

With restrictions on term length in full effect, the only real debate was the annual value of the contracts. Thus, after that meeting during the draft, it became apparent money was not going to be a major stumbling block.

The matching eight-year, $84 million contract extensions were done in early July and on the ninth, the announcement was made.

All in all, it was pretty painless.

The pain did not arrive until a year later when Bowman had to start moving salary, in part to make room for those contract extensions.