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Blackhawks trade Henri Jokiharju for Alex Nylander. Why? |
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You had me, Stan.
Just when I thought you were on the right page, you go and do this to me.
I was having a coffee with a colleague when I looked down and saw my alert from theScore: "Blackhawks trade Jokiharju to Sabres for Nylander"
"Why would they do that?!" I exclaimed, interrupting my conversation with said colleague.
I will have a deeper dive into who Alex Nylander is in another blog, but for right now, I want to investigate, why the Stan Bowman made this trade.
Here are a few instant thoughts that popped into my head as I tried to analyze this on my commute home:
* Why didn't the Hawks just draft Bowen Byram then? – Don't get me wrong, I like Kirby Dach but there are still a lot of smart hockey people that think Colorado hit the jackpot in Byram because the Hawks opted to pass on the defenceman at the draft.
Most of them thought it must have been because they have so many up-and-coming defenders in the system. Well, scratch one of them off the list.
* Henri must have an attitude problem – Joel Quenneville seemed to be very happy with young Finn's game at the beginning of the season. He played him primarily in a top pairing role with Duncan Keith. This was a pairing that most of us though, "boy, this could be a great duo for the next few years."
The Hawks didn't see it that way. Whether it was Jeremy Colliton or Stan Bowman's decision, Henri's season in the NHL was derailed when he was loaned to his country for the WJHC. After winning gold, he stayed in Rockford for the remainder of the season.
His game looked good to me… like potential top 4 for the next decade good. What went wrong?
Maybe he has an attitude problem? I haven't heard anything of the sort, I'm just reaching for straws here.
* "I like our defence" - Stan is so comfortable with the current state of his defence corps that he'd rather trade Jokiharju than have him end up in Rockford.
Stan saw Jokiharju as a tradeable asset and must really like Alex Nylander to make this trade straight up.
* Why not move someone else? – I would have moved Connor Murphy over making a move like this… and I like Connor Murphy.
* Is it something to do with the expansion draft? Nah… can't be that.
* Jokiharju potential was valued lower than Ian Mitchell and/or Adam Boqvist – the Hawks have drafted a lot of dman lately, we all know this.
Jokiharju, to me, projected to be the best two-way defender in my opinion. The others on the right-side are Boqvist, who will be Erik Gustafsson 2.0 and Ian Mitchell, who I really like as well and appears to be a little more offensive as well.
They must see these guys as better players than Henri long-term.
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I really don't have the answers right now, but these were just a few of my thoughts. And don't worry, I will have more.
Stan Bowman and Alex Nylander are on teleconference call as I type, so I will break some of that down tomorrow.
I just wanted to get in here with some initial thoughts.
Discuss…
TC
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