NEWSLETTER
As we come to the close of August, I hope you’ve enjoyed our weekly What If Wednesday series. We love to second guess coaches and management; it’s one of fans’ favorite things to do. And the Chicago Blackhawks have given us plenty to second guess over the years. Thus far this month, we’ve looked at four big What If questions from the Blackhawks’ history.
In today’s final edition of this summer’s What If Wednesday series, we’re going to travel all the way back to 1999. I had just completed my freshman year in college, the Blackhawks were one year removed from having traded Chris Chelios and many fans had left with him. It wasn’t a good time to be a Blackhawks fan or player.
When the draft order was released for that summer, the Blackhawks owned two picks in the first round: No. 4 overall and No. 23 (from Detroit via the Chelios deal). Unfortunately for Chicago, the 1999 NHL Draft wasn’t good.
Frankly, it stunk.
Looking back now, three of the top five players from that draft in regular-season games played were selected in the seventh round. Only four players appeared in 1,000 games. Only three players accumulated more than 624 points. And one of the guys in both of those categories — Henrik Zetterberg — was the 210th overall pick.
But the intrigue going into the draft was a pair of twins from Sweden who looked and played a lot alike. Daniel and Henrik Sedin were the most notable players in a draft class that was led by forward Patrik Stefan. Brian Burke was the general manager of the Vancouver Canucks at the time, and he desperately wanted both brothers. But they were both expected to be top-five picks, and the Canucks only owned the No. 3 overall.
The Blackhawks stepped into the mix with the fourth overall pick and helped Burke maneuver one of the great draft moves in history, making a series of trades with the Hawks, Lightning and Atlanta Thrashers (remember them?) that landed them with the second and third overall picks — and both of the Sedins.
The butterfly effect here is wild, so let’s ask the question: What if the Blackhawks had stayed put at No. 4 in the 1999 NHL Draft?
As I said, the Blackhawks owned two picks in the first round of the 1999 draft. The player who was ultimately selected fourth overall — by the New York Rangers after the pick changed hands four times — was forward Pavel Brendl, who appeared in 78 career games.
The Blackhawks selected defenseman Steve McCarthy with the pick from the Red Wings. He appeared in 302 regular-season games. Neither player would have helped the Blackhawks become a championship roster. Indeed, outside of Zetterberg — who every passed on multiple times — the Sedins and fifth-round pick goaltender Ryan Miller, there really wasn’t a building block player in this class.
And, with both of the Sedins gone by No. 4 overall, the best forward the Blackhawks could have picked with either of their selections in the first round eventually played in Chicago: Martin Havlat.
Chicago accepted Vancouver’s offer of veteran defenseman Bryan McCabe and the Canucks’ first-round pick in either 2000 or 2001 for the No. 4 overall pick.
If the Blackhawks hadn’t started the dominos that kept the Sedins together, the history of the Vancouver Canucks would be incredibly different. They were inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame together in 2022 and became two of the greatest players in the history of that franchise.
The pick the Blackhawks received from Vancouver was No. 11 overall in 2000; Chicago also owned No. 10, giving them the enviable position of two early picks back-to-back in the first round. Unfortunately, as they did too frequently back then, Chicago whiffed on both. Mikhail Yakubov and Pavel Vorobiev appeared in 110 regular-season NHL games combined. The Blackhawks could have had Niklas Kronwall, Justin Williams, Brooks Orpik or even Marcel Hossa (Marian’s brother).
Bad news becomes good news — eventually.
The Blackhawks were enough of a rudderless ship that McCabe talked himself into a trade before starting a second season in Chicago. He was dealt to Toronto for Alexander Karpovtsev and a fourth-round pick in the 2001 NHL Draft.
Karpovtsev’s name became infamous in Chicago because of the rant from Pat Foley when it was announced he had been traded before the deadline in 2004. The Blackhawks sent him to the Islanders for a fourth-round pick in the 2005 NHL Draft. Foley touted that as a massive overpayment by the Isles; he would have taken a back of used pucks.
That trade, a nothing deal at the time, ended up being critical to the Blackhawks’ dynasty. The fourth-round pick Chicago received from the Islanders was used to select defenseman Niklas Hjalmarsson.
In the early 2010s, the Blackhawks-Canucks rivalry was as good as any in the game. It became what the Bulls-Knicks and Bulls-Pacers had been when Michael Jordan was playing in our fine city. There was a lot of hate between two rosters loaded with really good players. And, like Jordan’s Bulls, more times than not the Chicago franchise came out on the winning end of the equation.
But if the Blackhawks hadn’t traded the No. 4 pick in the 1999 NHL Draft to start the process of landing the Sedins in Vancouver, that rivalry probably wouldn’t have been so great. And, without Hjalmarsson, the Blackhawks don’t win three championships (while the Sedins watched from home).
