NEWSLETTER
Quietly, as teams continue hiring their new front office executives and head coaches, trade and draft rumors are starting to percolate around the National Hockey League. And a familiar name for Blackhawks fans hit the fan on Monday afternoon: Alex DeBrincat.
On Friday, SportsNet’s Elliotte Friedman reported the Ottawa Senators might take DeBrincat to arbitration this summer as a pending restricted free agent. DeBrincat, 25, is one season away from unrestricted free agency and would require a $9 million qualifying offer this summer. Per Friedman, the Sens might look at making him an offer in arbitration that’s less than that number.
Friedman is now reporting on Monday afternoon that the “Senators have begun examining the trade market for winger Alex DeBrincat.”
Citing DeBrincat wanting to wait for the sale of the franchise to be completed before even beginning negotiations, the Sens have to get their house in order without knowing who would ultimately be signing the checks for players who might sign there.
Just 11 months ago, Ottawa traded the seventh overall pick (Kevin Korchinski) and the 39th overall pick (Paul Ludwinski) in the 2022 NHL Draft to the Blackhawks to get DeBrincat, who was coming off a 41-goal season. The results weren’t nearly what the Senators or their fans had hoped for or expected in his first season in Ottawa; he was fourth on the Senators in goals (27) and points (66) this past season..
A Blackhawks Reunion?
Yes, you’re automatically going to think “Hey! He would be awesome with Connor Bedard! Let’s bring him back!” But let’s go ahead and throw the safety break on that line of thinking immediately.
First, Ottawa is undoubtedly going to hope to recoup some of the premium assets they gave up to get DeBrincat last summer. I don’t see the Blackhawks being willing to move some of their enormous draft capital to bring him back at this point in the rebuild; the Blackhawks aren’t ready for that — yet.
And, with just one year remaining before he can hit UFA status, there’s no guarantee DeBrincat won’t prefer to at least test those waters instead of signing a long-term extension now.
More importantly, if DeBrincat really, truly wants to be in Chicago long-term… maybe he’ll head to UFA in 13 months and just sign here then, at which point we’ll have a full season of Bedard in the NHL to evaluate, another year of development from a significantly more robust group of prospects, and he’ll only cost the Blackhawks money and not other assets to bring back.
