Other than Patrick Kane, most of the Blackhawks’ high-value assets already have been sold off to ignite the rebuild.
General manager Kyle Davidson essentially has converted Brandon Hagel into two first-round picks, Marc-Andre Fleury into a second-round pick, Alex DeBrincat into first-, second- and third-round picks and Kirby Dach into first- and third-round picks.
But now those guys are gone, and Kane is expected to follow — at least sometime before next summer. Once that blockbuster goes down, Davidson will need to find a way to keep accumulating picks (and prospects) without being able to dangle star players in return.
The under-the-radar deal he made late Friday — swapping depth defenseman Riley Stillman for depth forward Jason Dickinson and receiving a second-round pick in 2024 from the Canucks in the process — shows how he can do it.
Salary-cap space is more valuable than ever in the NHL, with 27 of the league’s 32 teams within $5 million of the $82.5 million upper limit (according to Capfriendly) and 16 teams exceeding it with long-term injured reserve gymnastics. Fitting in new players, be it voluntarily via trades or by necessity because of injuries, will be a real challenge for half the league this season.
The Hawks, meanwhile, are one of only five teams with substantial space. They have roughly $7.1 million available, a number exceeded only by the Red Wings ($8.2 million), Ducks ($15.7 million), Coyotes ($19.5 million) and Sabres ($20.4 million).
And come next season, after Kane’s and Jonathan Toews’ contracts come off the books and Duncan Keith’s early-retirement recapture penalty decreases, the Hawks will have even more cap space. They have only $39.9 million in committed salary for the 2023-24 season, the second-lowest total in the league. Only the Ducks, at $39.8 million, have less.
The Canucks are in far worse shape in terms of financial flexibility. They’re exceeding the cap by $700,000 with Micheal Ferland on long-term injured reserve. They have $67.6 million in salary committed for next season, including nine players making more than $4.7 million, and will need to fit in notable new contracts for Bo Horvat and Nils Hoglander.
That outlook evidently made Canucks GM Patrik Allvin willing to surrender a decent pick to save a relatively meager $1.3 million, the difference in cap hits between Stillman ($1.35 million) and Dickinson ($2.65 million). The Hawks now have two first-, two second- and two third-round selections in each of the next two drafts.
Allvin won’t be the only GM in that boat this season, and his fellow sailors are the men Davidson will need to call weekly.
Furthermore, few current Hawks still will be in Chicago when the franchise starts trying to contend again. Some are mere placeholders, employed to fill out the team for a year or two of non-contention. Others are investments, players the Hawks would like to see succeed so they can be traded later. A decent number are holdovers from former GM Stan Bowman’s era, and Davidson has shown a refreshing lack of loyalty to Bowman’s failed experiments.
In any case, most are the equivalent of deck chairs the Hawks can move around in whatever way most benefits their rebuild.
Stillman and Dickinson fall into that deck-chair category. Stillman is a capable defensive third-pairing defenseman and is only 24, but he wasn’t going to be a long-term building block. There are dozens of other defensemen like him around the NHL, including a few now competing for his job (Alec Regula, Isaak Phillips and Filip Roos).
Similarly, Dickinson is a capable 27-year-old, defense-focused, bottom-six forward, but it’s unlikely he will remain with the Hawks past the expiration of his contract in 2024.
More clever trades involving such players should be able to keep the Hawks’ stream of asset accumulation flowing steadily. Davidson set an encouraging precedent Friday.
