Blackhawks Trade Bickell And Teravainen To Carolina For Draft Picks(Cap Space)
On the day where the NHL offseason officially began and teams were allowed to buyout players, the Blackhawks decided to go the trade route and they paid a premium for it. You never want to give up on a young player like Teuvo Teravainen. He’s got a ton of skill, good speed, he’s pretty responsible, plays in all situations, and is very versatile. I’ve already seen people starting to get their pitch forks out over this trade. Teravainen is a good young player, but the Blackhawks twitter talks about him like he’s some sacred cow and the key to the future. He’s not. I’d rather have him on the team than not obviously, and he may still end up being a really good player, but Teravainen’s production can be replaced.
There’s a good deal of revisionist history going on with the Bickell contract and subsequent trade. I want to go through a list of things about that contract.
1) The Blackhawks do NOT win the Stanley Cup in 2013 without Bickell. He was a legitimate contender for the Conn Smythe. It was reasonable to assume that the light switch finally came on for Bickell and he was going to be the power forward everyone hoped he would. He wasn’t washed up when the Blackhawks signed him.
2) The Blackhawks had to go to a 4th year in order to keep Bickell at a more reasonable AAV.
3) Nobody really scoffed at that contract at the time. There was no real reason to. Everyone was pretty happy that he was back and excited for his future
4) You don’t get to blame the Bickell contract for losing Leddy, Sharp, Saad, and Teravainen. You have to pick one guy.
5) Blame Canada and their shitty dollar for tanking the Salary Cap. Hey Canada, try diversifying your economy for once you oil state idiots.
6) Fuck the Salary Cap.
Now, this is a tough trade to analyze because it is unfinished. The Blackhawks now have cap flexibility to make a reasonable offer to Andrew Shaw, sign another defenseman, and perhaps bring back Dale Weise and Fleischmann to help out the bottom 6. This trade was about asset management and the most important commodity for the Blackhawks right now is cap space.
I want to say something out loud right now and then never talk about it again…the Blackhawks window for Championships isn’t as wide open as it was 4 years ago. The time to win is NOW. Jonathan Toews is 28, Patrick Kane is 27. NHL players don’t get better after age 30. Duncan Keith is 32, but he’s a cyborg so I’m not worried about him. Teravainen might be a really good top 6 player in 4-5 years, but the Blackhawks can’t sit around and wait for him to put it all together. He’s a very skilled player, but the Blackhawks have never had a shortage of skill.
There is also the fact that both Teravainen and Panarin are going to be free agents after next season. The likelihood that the Hawks would be able to sign both is probably pretty slim. If they were to keep Teravainen, and simply buyout Bickell the Blackhawks would’ve had to carry an additional $1.5M on the cap NEXT year as well. Potentially hindering their ability to sign Panarin.
I don’t know what the Blackhawks roster will look like come September, but now they have the flexibility to surround their core players with a more balanced lineup. Like I said in the beginning, it’s unfortunate that the Blackhawks had to trade away a promising young player, but that’s the reality of the Salary Cap era when the price of crude oil drops to record lows. If the Hawks can re-sign Shaw to a reasonable number, along with Panik, and a veteran Dman then they will be better for it in the 2016-17 season. Dynasty Reign
PS: I know hockey media and hockey twitter don’t like Andrew Shaw and they don’t value what he brings to the table, but intangibles are real and Shaw brings value with that. Just because you can’t measure it on a chart doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. He’s a factor. They need him. You can’t simply slide Ryan Hartman into the lineup and expect the exact same results because he and Shaw are different people.