Your description is exactly why Vegas declines. The best thing about Glass is his vision on the ice. That’s why they hold out on moving him.

He is trending up in his 5v5 play, so they are content with him as their 3C this year to allow him more time.

Why is vegas trading away their weakest position for their strongest

155 players were drafted in the 3rd-7th rounds of the 2018 NHL Draft.

Only 3 of them have made the NHL yet.

One of them is Philipp Kurashev (120th overall). He already has 9 points in his first 17 games, plus one of the NHL's best goals of the season.

Nice pick! What a goal last night

Vegas is not the target to lose a center or add to the RD. Vegas desperately needs good centers and their RD depth looks like this at the moment.

Pietro
Theodore
Whitecloud
Coughlan
Korczak

Bokvist would get buried and struggle to see the NHL

Trusting Lankinen to continue to put up HOF numbers is a bold strategy. Nice to see him put up solid numbers (A .924% scoring chance save percentage!!!!!), but small sample sizes are fan killers.

I think you're being a little hard on boqvist. He probably should've stayed in Rockford for another season but I think with another year or two with the hawks he'll catch up to the other guys. He is only 20. Give him time. Also Vegas desperately needs centers so I doubt they'd accept this trade

Blackhawks seem to find a lot of weird ass studs from Europe, been a theme for a few years now. With that being said, I cant see how this is sustainable. They are playing in the worst division in the league which might be their way to slip into the playoffs but man, this roster just isnt good enough for the playoffs

Easy yes from SJ

Hawks are supposed to be rebuilding anyways. So if lankinen drops off it just helps the hawks get a better draft pick. No reason to run out and waste money on another goalie when a lankinen is playing lights out.

Oh I agree completely, I was just echoing the OP's point, that yes, they're playing pretty well, but I wouldn't get too fired up yet. I may not have worded it extremely well though. Cheers!

This was supposed to be a rebuild year. What do you want them to do? Use up all their cap space on vets in hopes of winning a playoff round or two? If they make the playoffs cool, the kids get a great learning experience like they did in 2009. If they miss the playoffs oh well, they're already rebuilding.

But yeah their euro scouts are top notch.

Agree with you guys completely! I’m glad Vegas held on to him, he’s a great player.

We're a bad team, but we're playing well.

I'm just trying to enjoy it before it inevitably falls apart lol

Agreed there, kurashev has been spectacular!

Hard to disagree with you here. I think it’s a strong base to build off of, but Jesus some hawk fan suggested lankinen and lafreniere half serious. Let’s just hope lankinen just consistently continues to grow. It’s a poor sample size against marginal competition as is.

We will regress eventually almost all of the games have gone into OT or were won by barely holding onto a 1 goal lead. Its nice to win but id rather get a good pick for the future than be eviscerated by an actual contender round 1.

Yeah, I'm not a buyer at the TDL if thats what you're trying to say. I'm not 100% sure I'm a seller though. Continuing to make the playoffs and getting these rookies playoff experience is a big deal.

@shmoeman Canada is the weakest division. Then debatable between pacific and Central.

It’s like I said, I do like boqvist. I loved him when we drafted him, but what’s disappointing to me is that the intelligence side of his game has been staggeringly poor. His talent is exceptional but he never seems to know how to use it. If he gets AHL time, that would obviously be best, but if we could get a marquee center in the making that would be huge.

yea that was kinda my point, that front office is used to winning and going for it at the deadline would be the worst possible option for this team. Maybe they pick up a 4/5 dmen or a 3rd liner for a couple of thirds or something but past that would be idiotic. Reminds me a little bit of the Rangers last year, supposed to be a bad year but lots of players ended up having breakout seasons and pushed them into the playoff conversation.

Next year when healthy and after a couple moves Hawks could be dangerous

"You have a huge ego and are unbearable. Please be respectful and don't antagonize in your response."

Canada is way deeper than the Central and Pacific has 3 really good teams. Central has 2 really good teams and a lot of meh after that, just my opinion tho

Haha, I follow a funny goalie instagram account, and they just had one on there that said something along the lines of "When your 25 year old rookie goalie has more points than the next GOAT, Lafreniere"

Not gonna lie, Hawks fans have gotten way too overhyped this year for a team that's really not that good. They should look forward to sticking to the rebuild plan to make sure it's a contender for multiple years again, and not just make the playoffs this season to get swept out in the first round.

They're second in the division in terms of points, but really they're 4th. The e league has already said if they can't fit in all the games this season by May 8 then they're going by points percentage to determine playoff spots. Chicago has played 18 games which is tied for the most with Detroit & 4 of those have come against Detroit which should be an easy 8 points for any team. Despite all the talk, they're goal differential is still only +1 which is not good for a playoff team. The biggest overhype so far has been with Lankinen. Sure, he has spectacular stats so far this season. But it's only been 12 games which is a hot streak, not a telling of what he is. Of those 12 games, 3 of them have come against Detroit. That's 25% of his starts against one of the worst teams to play in history. Chill.

On the plus side, Kane's looked good and upped his play even more. Definitely in MVP consideration if Chicago can sneak into the playoffs. They're rookies have looked good and not overwhelmed, and have done so without Toews and Dach, major plus for the future.

Realistically, this team is likely to fall off once the league catches up in games played and all the hype talk will go away and the "oh well we won 3 cups half a decade ago" talk will come back from most Hawks fans. Which is a shame because there are good ones out there, but the arrogant ones usually get the headlines.


As for the trades, I wouldn't give up on Boqvist yet. He's young and d-man tend to take longer to develop properly anyways. He can be such a game changer with his skating and playmaking ability. The fact that he's a right handed d-man will explode his value when he takes off, so I'd wait on him. I've said it since he was drafted and I scouted him in London, he's the right handed version of Jake Gardiner. Love him when he's at his best, but when he's not he's very noticeable. But he'll be the guy to quarterback any power play in the league. Just be patient, which is the most important thing during a rebuild. Don't run your best young talent outta town before they get good or it'll be an even longer rebuild.

I agree and disagree on Boqvist. Yes, Beaudin and Mitchell excelling makes him trade bait, especially if we decide to hold on to Murphy long term (which I think we should), but I disagree about his vision. His vision and awareness is phenomenal, the problem is his execution. He made a few flashy offensive plays last night, which show that he knows whats going on most of the time. The problem is, when he tries to make a nifty saucer pass and it doesnt get off the ice and goes right into the defenders stick. Thats his issue. He knows where players are in the defensive zone and knows what he needs to do, he just doesnt have the strength to do it. I think he will get there in another 2 years, and he shouldn't be in the NHL yet, but I dont think calling his intelligence is necessarily the correct analysis. I think if we can find a way to get a premium young forward for him, I make the move, but I dont trade him unless its a win because he still has plenty of upside.

I still don’t believe the playoff experience is enough of an incentive yet until we actually round out our prospects at wing and center. A priority should still be at least one more sure fire 1C/top six LW or RW prospect. We don’t have the roster for the playoffs as it stands.

Which brings me to divisions. Central has been, to me, by far the worst. It’s not very close either. Pacific has 5 teams fighting for playoffs to the end, while the canadien division’s biggest disappointments by and large have been the Canucks and senators. I genuinely though ottawa would be a little better. But the central is just a mess. Dallas is showing they’re only a playoff team, Nashville is god awful, Detroit is.....Detroit, and what the hell is going on with Columbus?! Tampa and Florida (in Q we trust!) are both top class, even Florida was far from it last year, and Carolina is almost trying to make things harder on themselves. This division is doing all it can to GIVE Chicago a playoff spot.