What to think of the latest Blackhawks trade with the Florida Panthers

The Chicago Blackhawks have now made two trades within a week involving the same team. After months of silence on the trade front, things are starting to really heat up. In a press release from the Chicago Blackhawks around noon on Thursday, it was announced that the Hawks made a five-player trade with the Florida Panthers.

The Chicago Blackhawks sent Lucas Carlsson and Lucas Wallmark to the Florida Panthers in exchange for Brett Connolly, Riley Stillman, and the rights to Henrik Borgstrom, as well as a seventh-round draft pick in 2021.

The big thing is this deal is Connolly’s contract. Chicago was in a position to take on some cap space for a team looking to add at the deadline, and moving Connolly does just that for the Panthers. Florida gained about 2.5 million in cap space, via CapFriendly, and is now in a better position if another deal occurs.

Losing Carlsson and Wallmark is not that significant for the Hawks either. Wallmark did not end up working out with the Hawks, and while Carlsson is a capable young defenseman, there were just too many pieces ahead of him.

While Connolly’s contract is a knock against him, he is still just 28 years old and probably will get a crack in the lineup over the course of the next two seasons. Stillman is another good piece in this trade. He is a 23-year-old defenseman that is better physically and defensively than some of the Hawks rookie blueliners.

I think the only knock against Beaudin, Boqvist, and Mitchell is that they all play a similar role with the team. They are supposedly offensive defensemen that can play great with the puck, but Chicago needs some defensemen that can play well in their own end.

The team doesn’t have that great Hjalmarsson/Oduja pairing they had during their championships, and maybe Stillman can become that in the future.

The Blackhawks trade didn’t net them too much capital in return, but adding Borgstrom is a plus.

Henrik Borgstrom is another first-round pick that hasn’t worked out with his original team. Like Dylan Strome and Alex Nylander before him, Borgstrom could succeed in the NHL on this new team. The Hawks will definitely be looking to give him a chance next season should he sign with the team.

Bowman had a lot of positive things to say about Borgstrom in his statement via Charlie Roumeliotis’s Twitter:

With this latest trade, Chicago is now starting to use up some of their money they had going into this season with how many players they put on IR. Now the question remains whether they are done making deals or will we see more in the coming days. I still think the team could be involved in a few deals but only time will tell!

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