BREAKING: Blackhawks trade Mattias Janmark to Vegas for draft picks

The Chicago Blackhawks keep making moves during today’s trade deadline, and have now completed a much-anticipated deal.

As first reported by TSN’s Darren Dreger, the Blackhawks have traded forward Mattias Janmark and a 2022 fifth-round draft pick to the Vegas Golden Knights. In exchange, the ‘Hawks received a 2021 second-round draft pick and a 2022 third-round draft pick from Vegas. The San Jose Sharks are also reportedly part of the deal, although no details have been released.

Janmark was rumored to have been moving for a long time, so this trade shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. However, I don’t think many people would’ve assumed that the Blackhawks would be able to get so much for him.

While Janmark has had a very solid season for Chicago, getting both a second and third-round pick back for him seems like a tremendous haul for Vegas. Either the Golden Knights were just desperate to acquire a bottom-six guy to round out their team, or they just don’t mind shelling out draft picks.

Either way, this seems like a win-win for both teams. Vegas gets a solid depth player to help them in the upcoming playoffs, and the Blackhawks are able to add draft picks that will be tremendously helpful for their future. General Manager Stan Bowman has previously said that he wasn’t looking to bring in players for the short term, and was more concerned with building up his prospect pool. That certainly seemed to play out in this trade.

While the Blackhawks will definitely miss the depth and chippiness that Janmark brought to the team, this seems like a good move overall, and Chicago was able to get more value back for him than I ever anticipated.

The trade deadline is still continuing at full throttle, and there’s no telling if Stan Bowman is done making moves yet. He already made a trade earlier today to acquire Adam Gaudette, and we’ll have to wait and see if anything else happens. The NHL Trade Deadline is today at 3 p.m. EST.