It’s already been a whirlwind of a summer for the Chicago Blackhawks. News today makes things a tad more hectic. The Blackhawks appear to be making one last run with their core of Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews considering the moves they have made over the last week. News has now broke that the Chicago Blackhawks have acquired Vezina winner and Vegas netminder Marc-Andre Fleury. The deal is as follows:
Further to @DarrenDreger, and the deal is still pending a trade call, Fleury to Chicago in exchange for forward Mikael Hakkarainen@TSNHockey @TheAthletic
— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) July 27, 2021
It’s an interesting trade for both sides. For Vegas, they clearly believe in Robin Lehner. Furthermore, with Fleury off the books, they free up $7 million in cap space. Could this make way for a Jack Eichel deal? Possibly. It seems like after Fleury’s mishap against Montreal in the semifinals has caused him to fall out of favor amongst coaches and management.
For Chicago, they add a proven Vezina winner who can split games with rookie sensation Kevin Lankinen. As pointed out by Frank Seravalli, its a low-risk high-reward move for the Hawks.
Remember that they have nearly $11 million they can flip to LTIR at any moment with Seabrook and Shaw. It's a no-risk, high-reward transaction.
— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) July 27, 2021
While at first glance this could create some cap problems whether Fleury retires or not, Capfriendly suggest that the Hawks aren’t incurring any risk if he retires.
If Marc-André Fleury decides to retire instead of playing this season in Chicago, his $7M cap hit will be completely removed.
Chicago will not have a cap hit charge due to Fleury in that scenario.
— CapFriendly (@CapFriendly) July 27, 2021
Chicago ranked near the top of the NHL in high-danger chances against due to a porous blueline. Luckily for them, Fleury ranks as one of the best goalies in high-danger chances and could drastically change the fortune of the Blackhawks. Not to mention, the addition of Seth Jones should help Chicago’s blueline immensely. There’s still a lot to digest and we won’t know for sure whether Fleury decides to retire or not. Regardless, it’s a great pickup by Chicago who looks a whole lot better than they did a few months ago.
There are also rumblings that MAF has found out about this trade via twitter and that he is still yet to hear from anybody on the Vegas side of things. There is clearly a falling out between both player and organization with many speculating that Vegas has been doing so since inception. It will be interesting to see how the rest of this ordeal plays out.
