As a habs fan... you have yourself a deal! Hahah

Hawks are going to need those picks soon. And I'm not saying that to be a troll. You guys need to rebuild.

rebuild? kane and toews are not 33 right now. Hawks need to go all in. we have several years before a rebuild is even questioned.

Toews isn't quite as good as he used to be. Kane is still great though. Their problem is depth. They used to have a ton of good talent outside their top9/top4. Sure, they could squeak into the playoffs this year, but it's unlikely the Hawks have the depth to make it all the way through the playoffs. Might as well rebuild.

..... you are seriously going to throw the team away right when the actually have cap space to make moves? you are seriously jumping the gun like 4 seasons early. Pacioretty would be a solution for the next 4 seasons. this is no one year thing for the hawks. they would extend him. What about your islanders? havn't sniffed a confrence final in how long? why don't they just rebuild right? Exactly. So stop being dumb.

Well, the Islanders have more playoff series wins within the last two years than the Blackhawks. Isles have one, the Hawks have zero.

But that's besides the point. If you think the Isles should rebuild, make a post about it yourself. I'm simply saying that the Hawks have very few prospects in the cupboard and they don't have the depth they used to. At the VERY LEAST, the Hawks should be holding on to their draft picks. The Hawks have a very real chance of missing the playoffs this year, and if they do make it, I doubt they'll win a series. St. Louis and Winnipeg are deeper teams with just as much star power as the Hawks. The Hawks had a great run. Three Cups in six years. And the roster they had in those six years were WORLDS better than they are now. If you're comfortable with the Hawks being a 1st-2nd round of the playoffs team, then sure, trade away all your picks. If you want more Cups, I'd recommend a rebuild.

I agree with you, except I think it's the opposite. Hawks should go all in now, maybe overpay on the top UFAs next season. Yes, the cupboard is small. I think the better option is to go all in during free agency and worry about rebuilding in 4 or 5 years.

Bad teams misinterpret competing/rebuilding when they are the opposite.
Good teams compete/rebuild when the time is right.
Great teams do everything always at the same time. Best example? Tampa Bay.

You are assuming the hawks cannot get better than they are right now. You are assuming the hawks don't have much prospects good enough to be on the roster. you are assuming the hawks don't have enough space to make any moves. This is a lot of assuming. The hawks have the pieces to make major trades and they have the cap space to make it. They will do it. You do not throw away kane at 29 and toews at 29. Especially when you have players like debrincat and schmaltz who are very young and already pretty damn good along with other pieces like saad, etc. The hawks have younger D as well. Dylan Sikura/henri jokiharu, and other prospects will be ready to go this coming season giving the hawks even more free cap/options to do what they want. Stop defending the Islanders. Just stop it. You have done almost nothing for the entirety of Tavares's career. The hawks have won 3 cups, 1 conference final, and have gone to the playoffs every single year of tavares's existence on your team. Islanders? a few play off runs that at most was 2nd round exits. Don't compare the franchises because the islanderes have been nothing since the early 80s

1. Your opinion of the Islanders has nothing to do with this post. Two completely different teams. I can't imagine why you're bringing up the Islanders other than to change the subject.
2. This whole site is based around assumptions. You're making assumptions on this post too. You're ASSUMING that the Blackhawks won't need 1st rounders for another few years. You're ASSUMING Pacioretty will be a good fit in Chicago. And that's fine. This entire site, by necessity, deals in assumptions. Hell, even NHL GMs, by necessity, have to deal in assumptions. Whenever an NHL GM makes a trade, they're ASSUMING that the trade will help them.
3. The Chicago Blackhawks are widely thought to have an extremely subpar prospect system. You guys shouldn't be throwing away draft picks like that.
http://www.dobberprospects.com/2017-organizational-prospects-rankings/ https://thehockeywriters.com/nhl-best-farm-systems-2017-ranking/ http://lastwordonhockey.com/2017/09/20/tsp-nhl-organizational-prospect-pool-rankings/
4. Toews and Kane are both great forwards. Don't get me wrong. But the Hawks won their Cups on depth. The Hawks don't have that kind of depth anymore. Especially on defense. It might be wise to sell off a few of the forwards surrounding Kane and Toews, get some good draft picks this year and make another Cup run in a few years.

If you want a playoff push AND you're in win now mode...you don't trade away Panik. You have the cap space, he's physical, VERY physical. That's playoff hockey. I'm not saying he needs 17 min a game, but you NEED to be able to swap out Debrincat or Schmaltz (for a line or 2) with someone physical when the opposing team zero's in on Kane. I also don't want to hear Hayden as the solution either, that's a cop out. You need more than 1 person making hits.

Patches is the kind of player that I'd be looking for and taking on Pleck would be a nice touch because you're losing AA in this trade. I'd put Hino in this trade and take out some other 2019/2020 draft picks because if this is do or die...you'll need those picks more than you think.

As far as the prospects go. I agree that Henri COULD be a pretty darn good puck moving Dman. Sikura's play has been good at camp and at Northeastern, but in all honestly...seriously think...are they A prospects? Are you considering just how many people leave the NCAA each year than have done better than Sikura in the NCAA and don't make an impact. Maybe, just maybe these are two A prospects depending on what you consider A prospects to be, but let's consider a few things. The Hawks traded Down to the 29th pick to get Henri and this was just last year. So 28 teams passed on him (including the Hawks!) just last year so even 1 season of really good play in the WHL play isn't going to pull a 180. The WHL doesn't guarantee anything. Chad Krys is a B prospect right now, but besides that...they have nothing.

F50, there's A TON that goes into TBL's team...like Kuch forced into the best contract in hockey. My conspiracy theory alarm still goes off over this contract! Stamkos definitely took a hometown discount. I'm curious if this hardball tactic will help or hurt TBL in the long run. On the other side of the coin, they haven't won yet. I do think they will win it all this year, but can't assume anything. The central has a bunch of really good teams and there are dark horses everywhere!

Anyone saying the Hawks need a "rebuild" are quite clueless to be completely honest.
Do the Hawks need to "retool"? They sure could use some organizational depth.
Do I think the Hawks are a better team heading into the playoffs this year vs last year right now? No. But if they can acquire a true top 4 D-man and sign Sikura I think they are. Many of their forwards this year are built for playoff hockey vs what they had last year. They aren't going to destroy the regular season with their roster but they can grind though playoff series with it. The Hawks biggest issue is their defense and its really not even a question. They have high shot generation but give up A TON in their own end. This is something that the Hawks have never done in the Kane-Toews era.



Panik is the type of player you like to have on a playoff team. His playing style fits playoff hockey very well when teams are trapping the hawks like Nashville did last year. I think his contract should have been cheaper but it is what it is. If he's hot he is very effective.

The Blackhawks didn't pass on Henri Jokiharju. They did their research and knew nobody was planning on taking him in between the 26th and 29th pick. Many teams plan on picking a goalie or forward in the first round depending on their organizational depth. In return for knowing what other teams were looking for they got Andrei Altybarmakyan who is a 19 year old getting playing time on the best KHL team.

Florida has no state tax and hence can offer smaller contracts that end up being equivalent in final pay to other teams. Vegas and Dallas are the only other teams that don't pay state income tax. All three of those teams can offer at least 3% (Pennsylvania state income tax) less than the entire rest of the league. In fact only Tampa, Vegas, Dallas, Pits, Philly, and Chicago have state income taxes less than 4% and that doesn't even count some city taxes (Philly and Pittsburgh have 3+% city tax) that exist. As reference California has a state income tax of 13.3% for earns over $1M. Only 4 teams in the league can offer contracts that are taxed under 4% on the city and state level. Those are Tampa, Dallas, Vegas, and Chicago at 3.75%.

EDIT: Illinois state income tax raised to nearly 5% in 2017. So lets say you top 6 players on the team are making 5M each. They all can be offered 4.75M instead because that the equivalent to the other best NHL cities that get 5+% tax. You save $1.5M in just those contracts that you can then spend on a better bottom 6 forward.

Well, I don't think the taxes are THAT large an impact for players. Especially Chicago. Holy Cow we pay a TON of property taxes. Taxes are a 0 sum game. So in general if your city is financially sound...you're probably ok. If you're like California or Illinois...F***ed! AND technically you pay the taxes of the state each game is played in...so yes for 41 games this would be the case, but every player has like 24ish state tax returns. Obviously the organizations take care of this, but it's actually pretty fascinating.

I would disagree that taxes are a zero sum game. Living in Texas vs living in California you will take home two very different looking pay checks. Along with that sales tax and property tax are essentially a wash or extremely little when comparing states. I'll choose living in Dallas 10 times out of 10 if I'm making $5M simply based off the fact I'll be paying $600,000+ less in income taxes.

I forgot about the "jock tax" but leave it to California to start that. I'd be curious to know if players pay state taxes for just game days or everyday they are staying in a city. Because in the NHL they are paid daily and not only on game days. It's also interesting to note that all operations employees that travel with the team must adhere to the "jock tax"

I don't think we're talking the same thing when I say "Taxes are a zero sum game." From the States perspective they don't turn a profit. That's all that means. They just pay for services like schools, garbage, blah blah blah. and pay for those services in the form of taxes. Services are going to cost $XXX. What I'm saying is that it doesn't matter HOW the individual gets taxed. Whether that be Property Tax...Income Tax...Sales Tax...it goes on and on. What that means is their take home pay is somewhat irrelevant. If a player has an extra $100k take home, but needs to pay $120k in additional property tax...it's a bad thing. Thus largely speaking, if the state is in bad financial straights and can't pay for the bonds they issued like Illinois...the teachers pensions...you're going to see higher taxes. (Texas is in very good financial condition.)

I believe Texas is the single most financially responsible state in America...so YES your example of Texas vs. California is true...it's also true for my example. With that said...even despite playing in many different states. There certainly is a delta for playing 41 game in Texas vs 41 games in Chicago. Should this tax delta determine be LARGE factor in a decision? I guess I tend to think talent, fit, winning, those "other" factors tend to weigh more heavily.

As a side note. A TRULY VERY INTERESTING READ regarding taxes and Usain Bolt is below. He won't race in the UK (besides Olympics for sponsorship obligations and Olympic specific reasons) because the UK will tax his Puma $ and other endorsements. To me anyway, this is very interesting stuff.

https://www.forbes.com/forbes/welcome/?toURL=https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnclarke/2012/08/17/usain-bolt-wont-return-to-great-britain-until-they-change-tax-laws/&refURL=https://www.google.com/&referrer=https://www.google.com/

This is too good... Pacioretty AND Plekanec for a 3rd line C, a bunch of undrafted AHLers and a few picks that will be in the 25-55 range... Who in the right mind are you to call my trades lopsided with this load of crap lmao if Bowman traded Danault and a 2nd rounder for Dale Wiese and Tomas Fleishmann, you clearly don’t have a clue here whatsoever