Presented by Nationwide Insurance Agent Jeff Vukovich
Chicago Blackhawks GM Kyle Davidson's phone was ringing off the hook at the trade deadline last year. He made nine moves in the weeks leading up to it, which included franchise icon Patrick Kane.
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It's expected to be a much quieter deadline for Davidson this time around, especially after the Blackhawks re-signed Jason Dickinson, Nick Foligno and Petr Mrazek to two-year contracts. The three of them could have fetched a respectable return for Chicago but surrounding the younger players with quality veterans was the priority, and it's hard to disagree with it.
Davidson probably wouldn't mind weaponizing his cap space by helping a team take an overpriced contract off their books for additional compensation — like he did last season with the Dickinson and Nikita Zaitsev acquisitions — or act as a third-party broker in exchange for a draft pick, but it obviously has to make sense and it seems like the market is drying up in that department. So we'll see what presents itself.
With all that being said, here are five candidates on the Blackhawks that could be moved before the March 8 deadline, which is one week away:
Anthony Beauvillier
Chicago Blackhawks
Beauvillier was acquired by the Blackhawks in late November for a conditional fifth-round pick in 2024 after the team ran into major injury issues. He has 14 points (four goals, 10 assists) across 42 combined games this season with Chicago and Vancouver. He's set to become an unrestricted free agent this summer, with his current cap hit at $4.15 million.
I doubt Beauvillier gets moved at this current price, but the trade deadline board is pretty underwhelming this year, so teams could shift their focus to buy-low candidates with some upside. Beauvillier once scored 21 goals in a season, although that was six years ago.
Colin Blackwell
Blackwell has been a spark plug for the Blackhawks after missing roughly 10 months because of sports hernia surgery. He has five goals, three assists and eight points in 30 games this season and is averaging 14:48 of ice time, which is by far a career high. His 82-game pace for goals is 15, which isn't insignificant if you're a contender looking for a bottom-six player at a cheap cost.
Blackwell won't command a significant return — we're talking a mid- to later-round draft pick — but it could fluctuate depending on salary retention. His cap hit is $1.6 million, but that number could drop to as low as $800,000 if the Blackhawks retained up to 50 percent.
Tyler Johnson
Johnson has 18 points (12 goals, six assists) in 45 games with the Blackhawks this season after missing a little more than a month with a foot injury. His 82-game pace is 22 goals, which would be his highest total since 2018-19 when he scored a career-high 29 with Tampa Bay. He's a quality veteran in the room, can play wing or center and is a proven winner.
Now, to the challenging part: Johnson's cap hit is $5 million, a tough number to swallow. Even if the Blackhawks retain half, that gets the number down to $2.5 million, which is still higher than a team would probably like for a player that would likely play on the bottom-six of a playoff contender at this point in his career. Perhaps a third-party broker could get involved to crunch the number down even more to as low as $1.25 million and make it more tolerable.
Jaycob Megna
It's probably unlikely he will draw interest, but Megna is playing top-four minutes with the Blackhawks and hasn't looked out of place. He's basically on the minimum contract too at a cap hit of $762,500. He's set to become a UFA at the end of the season. A potential cheap depth option if a contender is looking for an insurance policy.
Taylor Raddysh
If he was producing the way he did a year ago, I think Raddysh would get a little bit more attention. He scored a career-high 20 goals and 37 points in 77 games last season but has only five goals and 11 points in 55 games this season.
If you look at the underlying numbers though, Raddysh's expected goals are at 11.1 per Money Puck, which means he hasn't gotten much puck luck this season.
The only way Raddysh draws interest is if a cap-strapped team finds his $758,333 cap hit appealing. Again, we wouldn't be talking about an interesting return here, but just another name to consider. He's set to become a pending restricted free agent at the end of the season.