Blackhawks forward Marcus Kruger will be under a magnifying glass now more than any time in his career.
It’s not Kruger’s fault, but he was the one who got paid. While the Blackhawks traded away Andrew Shaw and Teuvo Teravainen and free agents Andrew Ladd, Tomas Fleischmann and Dale Weiss signed elsewhere, Kruger received a new deal for the 2016-17 season. On top of that, he’ll have the fifth-highest cap hit among the team’s forwards at $3,083,333.
That doesn’t mean expectations will change for Kruger. He’s not all of a sudden going to be a 20-goal scorer.