Team: 2020-21 Chicago Blackhawks

Initial Creation Date: Jun. 24, 2020

Published: Jun. 24, 2020

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

We've seen them all before, trading Strome for Brodin or some for Hanifin or other defenders. I think it is in our best interest to see what exactly Strome can provide for another year or 2 before making a decision on him. We sign him to a 2 year contract that takes him a couple years before he hits UFA so we still have control over his rights in case we want to trade him because his value has gone up. If his value has gone down, then he likely stays a 3c for the foreseeable future.

The reason we can do this is because there are plenty of good LD options to sign in FA, but if we are looking at relatively inexpensive options, there are 2 that stick out to me : Jon Merrill (28) and Brendan Dillon (29). Merrill would most likely be looking a short term contract, most likely in the upper 1 to lower 2 M range, for maybe a couple years. Dillon would probably require a few years in the 3-4 M range. I think there will be more bidders on Dillon so his price would probably go up a bit, making Merrill the better target, as he still has good position numbers, albeit not great points in more offensive zone starts. Another option would be to trade Saad and accumulate some cap space and sign Krug to a long term deal, but that just sounds like something that isnt going to happen so I'm not going to bother trying to figure that one out.
Here I chose to sign Merrill to a (generous) raise at 2M simply because of cap implications that come with buying out Maatta and Smith, but I think it is pretty easy to see a scenario in which teams wouldnt refuse to take them and give us a late round pick back. Signing a defenseman also gives us another player to expose to Seattle, although we wont see how that plays out until later.

One other thing I picked up on was that Alec Regula was the only non-roster player that was training with the Hawks during phase 2, so maybe they see him playing some games next year. If they decide to let the kids play, maybe they trade De Haan too and let Beaudin Carlsson and Regula rotate around the circle based on who is playing well. I like his game and I think he could step in relatively soon, as a big guy at 6'4 he probably would fare alright on the physical side of the game and at a PPG in the OHL, his offensive awareness is definitely there.

Let me know what you guys think, and which option you think would be better. I might dick around a bit and try to see the implications of making room to sign Krug but I probably wont post that unless I deem it above impossible