Should The Blackhawks Look To Trade Toews And Kane?

“Trade ____” is always a thing on the interwebs when things get bad and obviously things haven’t been this bad with the Blackhawks in probably 20 years. Apparently yesterday on ESPN1000 trading Toews and/or Kane was a topic of conversation.

Now I should say that I didn’t actually hear this with my own ears. I don’t know exactly what was said other than it was being discussed.

The reasoning for trading the two most important players in the history of the franchise usually go something like this

“We suck. We gotta rebuild. Tear it all down and get something for those guys while we still can. Their cap hits are too high. We should tank for higher draft picks”

Allow me to first counter those arguments by saying:

And if that wasn’t clear, please let me follow up with

Let’s forget all the sentimental reasoning like how they’ve given everything to this city and this franchise revitalized the sport in a city where it was absolutely dead for a generation. I won’t forget that, but I am a sentimental guy. Just for the sake of this argument though I will put it to the side. I’ll go point by point to

Trade them while they still have value

Counter point:

Do you want Stan to be pulling the strings on a deal like that? A guy who has unsuccessfully traded Byfuglien, Ladd, Sharp, Saad, and Panarin? Do you trust him to get an adequate return based on his track record? I don’t.

Secondly, you’ll never get full value. I don’t care what package of picks and prospects are offered. The odds of landing two franchise level players in a return for a bunch of lottery tickets, well, you might as well play the real lottery. Even if the Hawks get the #1 pick, they could get it in a year where the best player is a Nolan Patrick type. Not all draft classes are created equal. You have to be bad and have high picks at the right time. That is impossible to predict. Trading Toews and/or Kane would be the classic 3 quarters and a dime for a dollar type of deal.

Their Cap Hits Are Too High

No, they’re not. Not anymore. Look at the deals signed by Matthews, Marner, McDavid, Tavares, Draisaitl, Eichel etc. Cap hits are only going up. If you clear that cap space you’re only going to be spending more for a collection of less productive players. They’ll never be able to replace the level of production and leadership provided by 19 and 88 on the open market or trade market. It’d be a net loss.

They’ll end up like the Wings with Zetterberg 

No

We should trade them so we can tank for higher picks

Hey morons….they’re tanking just fine already

And this is as of today. Duncan Keith is “week to week” and now it sounds like de Haan might be out for the year or at least a major part of it. Soon enough the draft order will look something like this

And when it does the Blackhawks can draft Eric Lindros 2.0

At the end of theday the goal is to win and win big as quickly as possible. The quickest way to do that is with great players. Trade Toews and Kane only means that you need to find two more instead of leaning on the ones you already have. If you think trading them is the answer, please let me know because the #Banned list for 2020 is a little light. I’d love to load it up with the names of more morons from the internet. Toews and Kane 2020, Toews and Kane forever