Few trades, 2018-19 season

Team: 2018-19 Chicago Blackhawks

Initial Creation Date: Mar. 10, 2018

Published: Mar. 10, 2018

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

Not a bad team at all... This team has the right mixture of veteran experience and youth. This team would absolutely contend for a Cup next spring...

Obviously I brought in Tyler Bozak and John Moore via UFA signings - I think both are exactly what the Hawks need and what they lacked this season.

And 6,000,000 for Kovalchuck is MORE than enough. Kovalchuk is 35 - no team is going to throw a ridiculous contract at him because he's a huge risk at anything more than 6 per and anything longer than a year.... Also, signing Kovalchuk for a year gives Bowman the opportunity to make a run at Panarin in the summer of 2019 - and ideally Panarin would be the long-term solution at 2nd line left wing.

I also brought Hammer back - yes - I absolutely believe Anisimov & Hossa are enough (at the very least close) - the Hawks may need to toss in a 2nd or something but Anisimov would be (and is) an asset in Arizona - he's a legitimate #2 center and an elite #3.. Perhaps the Hawks toss Forsling in the deal and it's done.

I have a feeling Bowman is going to draft Joe Veleno with the Hawks first round pick this summer and I think Veleno is NHL ready and has a good chance to make this team next fall so I put him on the roster.

All in all this is an excellent team - a team that can contend and this is the direction I want to see this team go moving forward. This roster (or a similar roster) is more than doable with the cap space Bowman has, and I only needed to make ONE TRADE and the cap hit on that was a wash (Hossa is LTIR even on this roster)..

So yea, this is another example showing that the Hawks aren't in "cap hell" and that Bowman does have the space and assets to put together a strong team that can compete this summer.

Either way this team has lots of options and is pretty deep... I would have been a little more satisfied veteran presence but this works too.

Flame away...