Blackhawks Nation was predictably upset on Wednesday. Faced with another cap crunch and some difficult decisions, general manager Stan Bowman was forced to unload promising 21-year forward Teuvo Teravainen in order to rid himself of perhaps his biggest contract mistake, forward Bryan Bickell, who carried a crippling $4 million cap hit into the final year of his deal.
The Blackhawks traded both players to Carolina for a second-round pick in next week’s NHL Draft and a third-round pick next year, likely paving the way to re-sign versatile and gritty forward Andrew Shaw, a favorite of coach Joel Quenneville, and to re-sign rookie of the year candidate Artemi Panarin next summer.
Teravainen’s skills were plain to see when he had four goals and six assists in the 2015 playoffs. He had 13 goals and 22 assists in 78 games this year, but Teravainen was stuck in a third-line role that would have been difficult to change given the players ahead of him. Chicago tried him for a short time on its top line with Jonathan Toews and Marian Hossa, but there was absolutely no chemistry between the three.
While it’s difficult to lose a player with such potential, it’s doubly difficult for Hawks fans who have seen the team shed numerous talents due to the cap constraints created by three Stanley Cups in seven seasons. Teravainen may eventually establish himself as a legitimate top-six forward with the Hurricanes, but at this point, he does not rank among the top Blackhawks personnel losses since the 2010 Stanley Cup. Here is our ranking of the team’s most significant losses since that watershed season.
1. Dustin Byfuglien: Byfuglien was part of the 2010 purge, perhaps brought on in part by the Hawks’ failure to qualify eight key restricted free agents before the 2009 deadline. Byfuglien has blossomed into an All-Star defenseman in Atlanta/Winnipeg, scoring 77 goals and posting 288 points in his six seasons with that franchise. Many coaches, including Quenneville and Coyotes coach Dave Tippett, still view Big Buff as a forward and the Blackhawks have sorely missed his nasty edge, his velvet hands and the net presence he created at even strength and on the power play.
2. Brandon Saad: Last season’s shocking trade of Saad to Columbus came to down to a matter of about $1 million per season. We can’t help wondering if Saad is having second thoughts now that he is playing in hockey purgatory with the moribund Blue Jackets. Saad fit like a glove on the Hawks’ top line with Toews and Hossa. Had he stayed, the Blackhawks would not have landed center Artem Anisimov (28), who centered the Hawks productive second line last year between Panarin and Patrick Kane, but Saad (23) should have been a fixture on this club for years to come. This deal was triggered in part by fear that Saad, a restricted free agent, would be an offer-sheet target.
3. Johnny Oduya: Oduya held out as long as he could last summer, waiting to see if the Hawks could free up enough room to re-sign the free agent. He wanted to stay and the Blackhawks wanted him to stay to keep intact the two strong defensive parings that led them to the 2015 Cup while logging heavy playoff minutes. In the end, he signed with Dallas. Chicago sorely missed his defensive-zone presence and underrated puck-moving ability last season. The Hawks’ thin blue line is one of its greatest issues moving forward, particularly since Bowman has traded away so many top prospects including Stephen Johns, who also went to Dallas in the Patrick Sharp trade.
4. Andrew Ladd: Ladd’s leadership and offensive abilities blossomed once he went to Atlanta/Winnipeg. He had 139 goals and 305 points in almost seven seasons while being named team captain. The Hawks missed his size and speed as well. Ladd came back to the Hawks in a trade-deadline deal last spring but he is an unrestricted free agent who will likely cost too much to retain.
5. Teuvo Teravainen: At 21, Teravainen’s best years are surely ahead of him, but he was entering the last year of his entry-level deal and with the expansion draft looming, the Hawks will only be able to protect so many players. Bowman is hoping players such as Nick Schmaltz can fill the void. “The goal is to try to keep this thing going, and have young players coming in,” Bowman told the Sun-Times. “Even though Teuvo is young, it’s hard these days when you have guys that are entering the final year of their first contract, then things get tricky when players get raises. You’re always looking for the next wave to come in.”
6. Patrick Sharp: This loss would have ranked higher had the Hawks not gotten so much out of Sharp. In his 10 seasons in Chicago, he had 239 goals and 511 points. While Sharp still has some productive seasons left, he has a lot of mileage on his body, he will be 35 in December and he is on the downslope of his career. He’ll be an unrestricted free agent after this season.
7. Dave Bolland: It was more of an emotional loss than an on-ice loss when the Hawks dealt Bolland to Toronto after the 2013 Cup to free up enough room to re-sign, gulp, Bickell. Bolland had just scored the Cup-clinching against Boston in Game 6 at TD Garden, and you could make a strong argument that he deserved the 2010 Conn Smythe Trophy for the job he did shutting down opposing teams’ top centers. Bolland was a fan favorite, but his body was beat up by the time he went to Toronto. In three seasons with the Maple Leafs and Panthers, he has just 15 goals and 40 points.
8. Nick Leddy: Chicago traded the puck-moving defenseman to the New York Islanders before the 2014-15 Cup-winning season, along with minor-league goaltender Kent Simpson, for defensemen T.J. Brennan and Ville Pokka and the rights to restricted free-agent goaltender Anders Nilsson. They didn’t miss him so much that season, but when Oduya also left, the constant reshuffling of the blue line corps took its toll. Leddy has become a fixture in New York, signing a seven-year, $38.5 million deal last year.
9. Kris Versteeg: Versteeg was part of the great 2010 Cup purge, but he did get to return for the 2015 Cup run before the Hurricanes fleeced the Blackhawks for the first time (a year before the Teravainen deal), taking Versteeg and forward Joakim Nordstrom in another salary dump in exchange for Dennis Robertson, Jake Massie and a 2017 fifth-round draft pick. In some respects, the skilled but smallish wing serves as a comparison for Teravainen. He was actually more productive in his first season with Chicago than Teravainen was, notching 22 goals and 53 points at age 22.
10. Michael Frolik: The Blackhawks traded Frolik to Winnipeg after the 2013 Cup to help re-sign Bickell. Frolik is a role player with great speed and underrated skill. Often, that type of player can be replaced, but he is arguably the best penalty-killer the Hawks have employed since their Cup era began in 2010. They could have used that element last season when their PK ranked 14th in the NHL at 72.2 percent. Every year that Chicago has won the Cup, it has also boasted an elite PK unit.
Note: You may wonder why Brian Campbell and Troy Brouwer are not on this list. The answer is that the Hawks wanted to move both. Campbell’s bloated $7.14 million cap hit was viewed as a massive mistake in Chicago that the Hawks were all too happy to unload on Florida. Brouwer was a disappointment in the season after the Hawks lost Ladd, Byfuglien and Versteeg in their first major cap purge, so they dealt him to Washington for the Capitals’ first-round pick.
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