Jake McCabe Trade Interest Heating Up?
The Blackhawks don’t play another game until one week from tomorrow, but that just means a team with a number of players drawing interest around the league has time to enjoy the rumor mill churning. One of the players with increasing interest these days is Blackhawks defenseman Jake McCabe.
On Monday, Frank Seravalli at The Daily Faceoff profiled McCabe as a trade target, including pros and cons of making the move and some estimates on what the Blackhawks might be able to get in return for the veteran.
Let’s start at the end of Seravalli’s write-up. This should prove to be fairly encouraging for fans hoping the Blackhawks can add significant assets between now and the start of the 2023 NHL Draft.
In McCabe, a contending team in ‘win-now’ mode will get a player that will certainly help given his hockey intelligence and compete. His injury history looms large. But the Chicago Blackhawks would be selling high on a player who has rounded into pre-injury form. If the Blackhawks are retaining half on McCabe, his return absolutely starts with a first-round pick in a deal not all that dissimilar to the comps above.
I put one specific statement in bold for obvious reasons: Seravalli believes the Blackhawks can get a first-round pick for McCabe. The comps he mentioned (and alluded to in this summary) are the trades of defensemen Brady Skjei and Rasmus Ristolainen, both of whom had some term left on their respective contracts and comparable cap hits. Both deals included a first-round pick.
Seravalli mentions three specific potential destinations for McCabe, all three of which we’ve heard before. He lists Toronto, Edmonton and Los Angeles as three teams who have interest in McCabe, and outlines how he would help/fit in their lineups.
He again reiterates when commenting about Toronto’s interest that McCabe’s seven-team no-trade list has six of the seven Canadian teams on it, and the Leafs are the one team not included. Which a) helps the Blackhawks potentially move him to Toronto, and b) complicates a potential deal with Edmonton with them being part of his limited no-trade list. The Kings could be a terrific fit for him in the United States as well.
