Lost Arc (blackhawks)

There's a predominant perspective with what the Blackhawks should gain in rumored and inevitable trades. Those gains are draft picks particularly regaining a 1st round pick in the 2022 draft which they will likely lose to the Blue Jackets as part of the trade involving Seth Jones and Adam Boqvist from this past offseason.

However, if the Hawks somehow win the draft lottery to select 1st or 2nd overall, then they lose their 2023 1st round pick to the Jackets instead. Given that there's a higher probability of not winning the lottery, it's actually better to send the Jackets a pick in the middle third of the 1st round rather than in the top 10.

The 2023 draft is supposedly much deeper and the Hawks are going to lose the 1st round pick for either 2022 or 2023. Thus, if the Hawks are to lose one of these picks, it again may be better to lose this year's pick then do whatever possible to gain a 1st round pick for 2022 and secondarily aim to get a 2023 1st round pick, too.

In this way, the Hawks would be guaranteed a 1st rounder in each of 2022 and 2023 plus one more in one of these years for a total of three 1st rounds versus losing a 1st rounder to Columbus and only have one across two consecutive draft years. Sure, 1st rounders gained in trades could be late rounders but they're better than none at all.

Giving up this year's 1st round pick and ensuring it's not in the top 10 requires the Hawks to not only lose the lottery but also play well enough to be a .500 team or slightly better to either just miss making the playoffs or even squeeze their way into the postseason and see how far they can go. The further the better for multiple reasons.

That's one caveat. The other caveat is who exactly on the current roster can net a 1st round draft pick in a trade. Patrick Kane and Alex DeBrincat most definitely could and so could Marc-Andre Fleury, Connor Murphy, Jonathan Toews, Kirby Dach, and Brandon Hagel if the deal is structured well with additional assets and/or salary retention.

Alas, though, as Kane and Toews apparently are untouchable which is either because they were asked if they were open to waiving their NMCs and they declined or management simply desires to build the team with them as part of the roster and salary structure. Regardless of the decision making, franchise growth could remain stunted.

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Blackhawks Game Summary

Starting Lineup

Hagel - Strome - Kane DeBrincat - Dach - Lafferty Kubalik - Borgstrom - Connolly Kurashev - Carpenter - Entwistle

de Haan - S Jones McCabe - Murphy C Jones - Gustafsson

Fleury Delia

Scratches: Toews, Kalynuk

Abridged Boxscore

1st Goal (0-1): Chiasson (Dowling) 2nd Goal (0-2): Boeser (Hughes, Dickinson) 3rd Goal (1-2): Murphy (Kane, Dach) 4th Goal (1-3): Schenn (unassisted) EN

SOG For/Against: 21/32 PP: 0-for-2 PK: 4-for-4 Faceoffs Won: 43%

Game Notes

* On the 1st goal allowed, Murphy was caught having to defend 2 Canucks as Jake McCabe and DeBrincat tried to play catch along the wall and Dach didn't cover eventual goal scorer Alex Chiasson.

* On the 2nd goal allowed, Brock Boeser fooled Fleury with a perfect redirect of a hard shot-pass by crafty playmaker Quinn Hughes.

* At least one facet of Chicago's game stayed positive in this game which was blocking shots as the Hawks amassed 30 total with McCabe and Calvin de Haan each standing in the way of 7 each.

* Kane is often most impactful when he makes instinctual point-blank plays with passes and shots; his effectiveness seems to decrease when he dusts the puck off and cradles the puck too long looking for options.

* Sam Lafferty (16:42 including 4:02 on the PK) continues to be leaned on quite a bit by the coaching staff as he wasn't too far off on TOI from DeBrincat (17:57) and Dylan Strome (17:32).

Highlights

Goal by Connor Murphy

General Manager Updates

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Scouts Out & About

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See you on the boards!

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