Max Pacioretty Has Been Traded And Now It's Official: There's No Help Coming To The Blackhawks

Look, I know that this is a good package for Pacioretty(all things considered). The Blackhawks certainly don’t have a forward prospect in their pipeline who is capable of scoring 100 points in the OHL like Nick Suzuki. But guess what…that’s not going to stop me from complaining about how Stan Bowman actually made the roster worse this summer.

I said the following on the blog when Stan Bowman traded Hinostroza and Hossa to Arizona for Kruger

The Blackhawks didn’t NEED to make this move. They could’ve placed Hossa on LTIR. They had Vinnie signed for two more years at an extremely reasonable cap hit. Vinnie was on the verge of a true break out year too. He’s definitely a top 9 NHL player who has been under-utilized. Imagine giving away a 24 year-old making $1.5M who finished second on the team in points per 60 mins on the team behind only Patrick Kane. He’s far and away the best player in this trade and even if the Blackhawks are able to acquire Pacioretty and/or Skinner I’m not sold on this logic. Both of those guys have one year left on their deals. Pacioretty and Skinner are both looking at like 7.5M+ on the open market next summer. Meanwhile Hinostroza will put up probably a minimum 50 points making $1.5M. Skinner had 49 points in 82 games last year, Pacioretty had 37 points in 64 games. I’d rather commit to the guy who is younger, faster, cheaper, essentially just as productive, and under contract for longer. That’s just me though. I am sure Pacioretty will have a bounce back year next season no matter where he gets traded. But its beyond that which concerns me. Would you rather have Pacioretty put of 60 points in 2019-20 making $8M or Hinostroza putting up 50 points while making $1.5M? Advantage, Vinnie. And you wouldn’t have to give up extra assets to get him either. He’s already on your team. You drafted him. Developed him for years. He’s from Chicago. His teammates love him. Seems like a bad move to me.

There is a HUGE disconnect between the words coming from John McDonough and the lack of actions taken by Stan.  McDonough says “win this season or else”, while Stan seems to be preparing for 2019-20. Well…sort of. He still has Gustafsson and Manning signed through NEXT season and I think if you asked people in the hockey ops department they’d be hopeful that Boqvist, Jokiharju, Mitchell, Beaudin, Gilbert, Hillman, Krys, Dahlstrom etc will force those guys out of the lineup. The point is that there is no coherent plan or direction…at all. They make the Hinostroza/Hossa trade so they would have cap space to go out and get Skinner/Patches in a trade. NOPE. They’re drafting all these young defensemen to be the engine of the team going forward but…NOPE. They’re blocking their path to the NHL with a surplus of bottom pair type players.

THERE IS NO PLAN. How is this possible to have generational talents in their prime and have NO direction on how to maximize their final peak years? It’s completely unacceptable. This blog isn’t even about Paccioretty. (it might be a little bit about the Packers, I’m tired and in a bad mood). It’s about the front office. The Blackhawks forward depth would look SO much better with Hinostroza in the mix somewhere and Stan traded him for NO reason and did NOTHING with his cap space he opened up. Maybe he’s saving it for next summer, I don’t know, but putting Hossa on LTIR and hiding his cap space that way was ALWAYS a better idea than depleting your roster, sacrificing drafts, and then not doing ANYTHING to replace him. The moves since 2015 are fireable offenses. It’s crazy to say that about a guy with 3 Stanley Cup rings, but that’s where we are. He’s blown it and there’s no plan to get back.