Chicago Blackhawks: Stan Bowman’s 7 Worst Trades as GM

The Chicago Blackhawks General Manager Stan Bowman has made some questionable decisions over the years. Here are the worst of the worst.

1. Dustin Byfuglien (2010)

The Dustin Byfuglien trade was very questionable to me. I understand that the Chicago Blackhawks were in a salary crunch, but Byfuglien still had one year left on his $3,000,000 AAV salary.

In his Blackhawks career, he played both defense and forward. In 260 games as a Blackhawk, he 55 goals and had 54 assists. Remember, he played defense for half of his time there. 109 points between the two aren’t terrible.

The Blackhawks could have let him play out his contract and worked with him in the summer of 2011 for a new contract. Byfuglien was an RFA, so even if the Blackhawks couldn’t re-sign him, they would have received draft picks in return.

The Blackhawks getting rid of John Madden and Adam Burish already covered the $3,000,000 AAV. The fact is, there was room for Byfuglien.

Trade Details:

The Blackhawks would receive both a first and a second-round draft pick from the trade. They would draft Kevin Hayes and Justin Holl, two guys that didn’t do much as Blackhawks’ players.

Was It Worth It?

No, it wasn’t. As Byfuglien gets older, he isn’t as good. He has struggled with staying on the ice as of late. Right now he is getting paid $7,600,000 AAV.

The positive is, this could have been another bad Blackhawks’ contract. At the time, Brent Seabrook and Duncan Keith were worth more to the team. Keith is still worth a lot, while Seabrook has one of the worse contracts in the NHL.

Would they have had the cap space today? No, they wouldn’t have. It still was a very questionable trade for the time. I bet they would have been able to keep him up until 2016.