Hawks Are Hiring, A Surprising Trade, Torts Heads to Philly, Salary Cap News, and Other Blackhawks Bullets

A night without hockey means peace and quiet, right? Well, unless you’re in Montreal or Vegas or Philadelphia or… yeah, there is no offseason (until August). We were shocked by a huge trade on Thursday night and some folks are apparently pretty disappointed in the coaching choice of the Flyers. Let’s jump into a Friday edition of Blackhawks Bullets.

  • Do you love math and data and stuff like that? Do you love hockey and, preferably, the Chicago Blackhawks? Can you write an eloquent cover letter? We ask because there a couple intriguing jobs open at the United Center right now.
  • The big news on Thursday night was a trade that seemingly came out of nowhere. The Vegas Golden Knights acquired future Hall of Fame defenseman Shea Weber from the Montreal Canadiens in exchange for forward Evgenii Dadonov. Weber didn’t play this past season and likely won’t play again; last summer the Habs announced Weber would probably finish his contract on LTIR. It’s pretty obvious why Montreal would want to make this trade — money. And Dadonov is a nice player who will likely slot into the Habs’ top six.
  • If Montreal is getting a huge cap hit off their books for four years, why would Vegas make this deal? Aren’t they in cap hell already, too? Well, there’s real money saved and the ability of the Golden Knights to use LTIR on a big cap hit to make things work next season… a subtle move one day after Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said the league sees nothing wrong with how Tampa has used their LTIR space the past few seasons to have stacked, championship-winning rosters.
  • Of course Vegas already traded Dadonov once… well, they tried to. At the trade deadline, Vegas reportedly traded Dadonov to Anaheim in another salary dump attempt. The problem: Anaheim is on Dadonov’s no-trade list — which Vegas apparently forgot to check before sending the paperwork to the league office. It was a debacle for both teams. And, as you might hope, the Ducks had the jokes ready for Thursday night’s trade.
  • The Philadelphia Flyers officially announced John Tortorella as their new head coach on Thursday morning. But apparently some former players aren’t thrilled with the hire.
  • That leaves seven open jobs in the NHL… where do you rank the Blackhawks’ gig?
  • We now officially know the salary cap (and floor) for the 2022-23 season. As expected, the ceiling is $82.5 million. The floor is $61 million. While we don’t expect the Blackhawks’ fire sale to be so dramatic they’re in the floor area, we certainly don’t anticipate Chicago being near/approaching the ceiling this year (or even potentially next year).
  • The Blackhawks, Bulls and White Sox are reportedly exploring the idea of their own television network. Are you in for SportsVision 2.0?
  • The Nashville Predators are reportedly being sold to… the brother of the owner of the Cleveland Browns? That’s the report out of Nashville late Thursday night. We’ll be interested to see what the final sale price is for the team. Nashville’s a terrific market (are you listening, MLB?). Maybe the Preds will raise a banner for the new owners?
  • Charlie Roumeliotis at NBC Sports Chicago wondered if a trade of Alex DeBrincat would impact Patrick Kane’s willingness to accept a trade out of town. Our two cents: Kane has seen other “favorite” linemates come and go during his career. However, with one year left on his deal, if the right situation presents itself for Kane elsewhere and the trade makes sense for the Blackhawks, anything is possible. That’s true whether DeBrincat is the next long-term face of the Blackhawks or gone before the Fourth of July. And teams have been asking about 88…
  • Finally, the Cubs are in a bad place right now but at least we’ll know if Clint Frazier will be along for any part of the rest of the ride this season at some point today.
  • written by

    Tab Bamford has been writing about the Chicago Blackhawks for almost two decades. He joined Bleacher Nation as the lead Blackhawks writer in May 2022. Tab is a member of the Professional Hockey Writers Association and is the author of two books about the Blackhawks: "100 Things Blackhawks Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die" (Triumph Books) and "Chicago Blackhawks: An Illustrated Timeline" (Reedy Press, 2021). Find him on Twitter/X/Instagram/Threads at @The1Tab

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