It would seem that as many people had said this was Chicago's do or die year,merely weeks after bringing home the Stanley Cup the Blackhawks have begun the imploding of their roster. On Wednesday Chicago Shipped premier power forward Dustin Byfuglien, defenseman Brett Sopel, checking forward Ben Eager and prospect Akim Aliu to the Atlanta Thrashers in exchange for the Thrashers' first round pick (24th overall) in the 2010 NHL Entry Draft, the 54th pick, and forwards Marty Reasoner, Jeremy Morin, and Joey Crabb.
Now we all knew going into this off-season Chicago was going to have cap issues, given the players they had and the massive contracts they had to sign them to (and the awful one they signed a certain goaltender too *cough*) this situation was inevitable, with that said Byfuglien? really? I mean the guy was a beast in the playoffs and is going to be one of the leagues best power forwards for years to come, why not move Sharp? (which will likely happen anyway because this move still doesn't help their cap situation all that much) or what about looking to move a guy like Bolland who has a cap hit of 3.375 Million who scored a gran total of..wait for it.. 16 points last season in 39 games! Even the year prior he played 81 games and only had 47 points, how does a player who puts up mediocre numbers like that get such a large contract in the new salary cap era? Idiocy, that's how.
Chicago got back a pretty decent prospect in Jeremy Morin, while playing with the Kitchener Rangers last season the 19 year old from Auburn NY had 47 goals and 36 assists for 83 points in 58 games, but of course nobody ever knows if that kind of skill can carry over to the NHL level and well he's 6'1" 189lbs he's got some big shoes to fill with big buff now gone, mind you he may come in score 28 points and the Blackhawks management will offer him 5 million a season right? The other assets in this deal (if you can even call them that) are Joey Crabb, who has 29 career NHL games under his belt. Where he had 5 goals and 4 assists for 9 points and looks like unless he can prove himself at the NHL level, will likely be stuck in the AHL for a while yet. Then you have the two draft picks, the two draft picks that Atlanta originally got in the Kovalchuk deal, which on the surface aren't too bad; 24th and 54th overall which the Hawks should be able to get some decent talent with from good drafting. Even still you're not going to get roster replacements for the assets the hawks have traded away, oh yeah and journey man Marty Reasoner is also going the other way back to Chicago, but at best he'll see 3rd/4th line minutes so he's really just filler in this deal.
The bottom line is this, Chicago management has put the team in this position and well they achieved the result they desired with winning a cup this year, Blackhawks fans have grown used to seeing the team win on the ice and won't settle for anything less, so I hope management has some tricks up their sleeve to pull themselves out of this dreadful debacle they have landed themselves in before they have to completely dismantle the team. -ch-
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