
Blackhawks GM, Stan Bowman, gave up a lot this year at the deadline in order to try and win now. Who can argue with that? It worked last year as the addition of Antoine Vermette was vital to the Cup run. This year's big addition was ex-Blackhawk, Andrew Ladd. Bowman gave up the key to the Brandon Saad trade, Marko Dano, the 2016 first-round pick, and also a 2018 conditional third-round pick. In the series against St. Louis, Ladd turned in Bryan Bickell-like numbers with 2 points (1G 1A), and a team-high, 36 hits, which only means he was chasing the puck...a lot.
So where do the Blackhawks go from here? Their young talent has been depleted in other trades: (D) Stephen Johns traded to Dallas (how much could they have used him?), (C) - Phillip Danault to Montreal for the Fleischmann/Weise trade, the 1st and 2nd round picks this upcoming year (2nd rd pick went to Philadelphia for Kimmo Timonen last year ).

The Blackhawks will most likely not bring back the following players: Andrew Ladd, Tomas Fleischmann, Christian Ehrhoff, and Michal Rozsival. A slim chance for someone to bring back, if Shaw cannot be resigned, is Dale Weise. He did not play much in the regular season, but was effective the last two games against St. Louis. Yet again, this is slim.

Whatever the case is, Bowman will be a busy person. The only good that comes out of the early exit, is that these players get an extra 6 weeks of rest. They have made it to at least the Western Conference Finals five out of the last eight years. An incredible feat.
One thing is certain, the Blackhawks are still an elite team. It just so happens that 3 of the 5 top teams in the NHL are in their division. Jonathan Toews will make sure they come back prepared for next year.
LET'S GO HAWKS!!!
Time for some youth, as your last statement indicate's this teams core has been through a lot and are a tremendous nucleus, but at some time you have to let go of the older guys and go with some youth movement, and that time is now in my opinion. Make some trades, bundle some players, whatever to get this team back on the speed radar as they are starting to slow down to much me thinks.
ReplyDeleteYeah, even though the core is still relatively young, other than Toews and Kane, they are all at least 30.
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