2 benefits and 1 slight downside to the Blackhawks trading Joe Veleno for Andre Burakovsky

The Chicago Blackhawks pulled the trigger on their first offseason trade by dealing Joe Veleno to the Seattle Kraken for Andre Burakovsky.

Veleno skated in 18 games for the Hawks this season after coming to Chicago in the trade that sent goalie Petr Mrazek back to Detroit. The forward scored three goals and passed out four assists during his brief Blackhawks tenure.

You would be excused if you did not even know he was on the team since he did not have much of an impact. If the Hawks were not going to buy out his final year, he likely would have centered the fourth line next season.

On the other hand, Burakovsky offers the Hawks improved production and represents a talent upgrade.

The first benefit of this trade is that the Blackhawks clearly upgraded their middle six.

Burakovsky had 37 points last season (10 goals, 27 assists) in 79 games compared to Veleno's 17 points between Detroit and Chicago.

He also had a career-high 61 points for the Colorado Avalanche in 2021-22. His name is on the Stanley Cup twice. He won his first championship with the Washington Capitals in 2018--the team that drafted him in the first round in the 2013 draft. He hoisted Lord Stanley's Cup again in 2022 with the Avalanche.

He has the experience to skate on the second line in a pinch, but he provides a talent upgrade over Veleno on the third or fourth line.

Burakovsky provides some much-needed size to the forward group.

With Pat Maroon retiring, the Hawks need a bigger forward on the bottom lines. At 6-foot-3 and 203 lbs, he fills the team's size gap, and is a younger replacement since he is 30.

He immediately becomes the biggest forward the Hawks have. He still has some decent hockey left biggest forward, where Maroon was at the end of his career.

The downside is that Burkovsky comes with a terrible contract.

The Blackhawks have the cap space this year to absorb his $5.5 million cap hit. He has regressed ever since that career season he had in Colorado three years ago, to where he is not worthy of that kind of cap space.

If the cap hit was just this season, it would be fine. However, he has two years left on that terrible contract.

The possibility remains that the Hawks are not going to spend much this offseason, with the belief that they are not ready to add an impact player to move into contender status. That is why it would be nice to have as much cap space as possible for next offseason to possibly make that splash move.

That is why it might have made more sense to keep Veleno's smaller cap hit, especially since he was set to be a restricted free agent after the season. If he was not producing, the Hawks could just easily non-tender him.

Plus, Veleno is 26, and the Hawks have had a string of late bloomers like Ryan Donato or Jason Dickinson.

However, if the goal is to start climbing out of the Central Division's cellar, the overall talent must be upgraded. This trade accomplishes that.