This Is A Pretty Interesting Trade Proposal For The Blackhawks

There was a lot made on social media earlier this week about the abundance of scouts in attendance for the Blackhawks-Devils game on Wednesday night. 

The Blackhawks are in a GREAT spot to look for help both short term and long term at the same time right now because they're playing well, they have a TON of cap flexibility, and the bulk of their top 3 rated prospect pool haven't even played pro hockey yet. That affords Kyle Davidson and company to be creative here this year. The guys from What Chaos got my wheels turning a little bit. 

The Preds tried to rebuild on the fly a couple summers ago when they brought in Stamkos and Marchessault and it just hasn't worked. Stamkos looks like a shell of himself right now. There was a lot of noise made when the Lightning didn't bring him back and opted for Guentzel instead, but maybe they saw the writing on the wall with him and got out while the getting was good. Now Nashville is stuck with an aging player who has four points in 18 games this year for the 2nd worst offensive team in the NHL. I would imagine that the Preds are ready to pull the chord on this entire idea they had two summers ago and rebuild for real. 

I would imagine there are still plenty of contending teams that are interested in having Steven Stamkos for their playoff push because, like the guys said the clip above, there's still some leadership and powerplay value and he might be able to produce with better, faster, players around him. I would also imagine that the cost to get Stamkos out of Nashville simply might be getting him off the Preds books. Stamkos is set to make $8M/year for the next two seasons after this one. And while the Cap is going up and the Preds do have cap space, those are still real dollars that a smaller market team has to pay. 

Enter the Chicago Blackhawks and their abundance of cap space. I mentioned this the other day, but the Blackhawks have a lot of spending to do in free agency this summer with the cap increase + a ton of money coming off the books. 

The Blackhawks can simply be a bank and pick up an asset for retaining some salary as we've seen them do in the past. No harm in the that. 

OR…maybe the Blackhawks bet on themselves and Stamkos. How much is Stammer's drop in production due to him and how much of it is due to his environment? I would guess it's a bit of both and as hard of time Stamkos has had this year, he still potted 27 goals last year and 40 the year before that? How much of his struggles are down just to puck luck? Stamkos is also has a career low shooting % right now of 8.1%. While he probably won't pump goals in at a 15% clip like he's done for the majority of his career, there's got to be a bit of a correction to 10%.

Now imagine how open he would get on that left side of the PP with Bedard getting the attention on the right side. Those little seem passes and that extra second of space would probably make Stamkos feel like he's in heaven back with his old Tampa Bay coach, Jeff Blashill. A little windy city rehab project for Stamkos. If it's a match made in heaven and he helps the Blackhawks win, then great. The Blackhawks get a good forward who can play wing or center and help on draws and boost the PP. If the Blackhawks come back down to earth, but Stamkos turns his game around a bit then and the deadline approaches the Blackhawks could in theory, like the guys said, flip Stamkos to Colorado or Vegas or Edmonton, etc while retaining again and they'd likely get more than what they gave up in the first place. The remaining two years of the deal on the books won't hurt the Blackhawks at all as the cap goes up and the Hawks continue to have a bunch of guys on rookie and RFA deals. This is a good idea that makes a lot of sense on paper. 

I'd put the odds of this actually happening at like 2%, but it's definitely intriguing AND…it's just fun to think about the Blackhawks being good enough to make trades that could be of benefit in the short term. The Blackhawks are officially interesting again. Davidson could have fun phone calls instead of only making in-season deals on paper. Feels good to be back in the mix even if it's only in the hearts and minds of fans.