I've Come To The Conclusion That The Blackhawks Should Be Buyers At The Deadline

50 days. Fifty. We are staring down the barrel at the end of an era. It's sad even though we know its coming. I think...the Blackhawks are on the right path. Reichel looks like a player. The 2022 draft class is off to a good start. With some luck they'll add Bedard and if they're not quite as lucky they'll add Adam Fantilli. You would hope that with maturation, luck, and development the Blackhawks will be halfway to a talented top 6 with Bedard/Fantilli, Reichel, and Nazar. And potentially half-way to a pretty good top 4 with Jones and Korchinksi. If you're looking at the Blackhawks peers at the bottom of the league you could argue that the Blackhawks are a little further along than Arizona, San Jose, and Anaheim at the bottom of the West. 

And that is BEFORE the Blackhawks add more assets at the deadline as they offload Domi, Anthaneseou, Kane, Toews, McCabe, Stalock, etc etc etc. 

Right now the Blackhawks have 6 picks in the first three rounds of this coming draft. I assume that number will be closer to 9 on draft day. They have the same number next year at this moment. They had 8 guys drafted in the first 3 rounds last year. Point being...that's a shit ton of prospects coming into the pipeline and they already have some guys like Kaiser, Vlasic, Del Mastro, Slaggert, Nolan Allen and Colton Dach.

Obviously not ALL of those guys and those future picks are going to turn into NHL players. You could argue that they have their most value right now. Which brings me to the point of this blog...

I think the Blackhawks should look seriously at trading for Jakob Chychrun. Chychrun is a stud. He is only 24 and is under contract for two more years. He will probably require a BIG pay raise at that point, but the Cap is going up and the Blackhawks are about to have one of the lowest payrolls in the league. They could actually use that cap space as a weapon to acquire some bad contracts in exchange for even more assets. Point being, they can afford to jump start their rebuild by sending Arizona some picks (somehow Arizona is still awful and have basically no asset and nothing really to trade besides Chychrun). Would Arizona be interested in a D prospect not named Korchinski and Tampa's 1st? Assuming the Hawks can grab another 1st round pick at the deadline they'd be in the exact same spot you're in now with a bonafide top 4 defenseman. 

Maybe Chychrun wants to go to a better situation than going from one loser to the other, but that is neither here nor there because he doesn't have a NMC. He also might want to play for his uncle...Blackhawks head coach Luke Richardson. 

Bedard, Nazar, Reichel, Korchinski, Seth Jones, and Jakob Chychrun is a great core to build around. 

Dear Kyle, 

Think about it.