Chicago Blackhawks: Joe Pavelski worth a short-term deal
The Chicago Blackhawks can use another good player to join their forward core, especially one as elite and as accomplished as this San Jose Sharks player.
The Chicago Blackhawks are in an interesting spot. They appear to be trying to retool on the fly and get one more run at the cup with Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane. They were swept by the Nashville Predators in the 2017 playoffs and haven’t made the playoffs since. They are going to make the third overall pick in the 2019 NHL Draft and could be just a piece or two from being right back in the playoffs.
The San Jose Sharks just signed superstar defenseman Erik Karlsson to an eight-year contract extension with an 11 million dollar cap hit. That now means that 40% of their cap hit is taken up by five players with some very notable free agents. Some of them are of the restricted variety but one unrestricted free agent they have is captain Joe Pavelski.
Pavelski is an elite goal-scoring center/winger that is going to get some money this summer. He is 34 years old so he is closer to the end than the beginning, but he is still putting up elite numbers so a short term contract might be awesome for the Blackhawks to look at.
Pavelski had 38 goals and 26 assists for 64 points in 75 games for the Sharks last year. Those 38 goals are extremely impressive. He scores almost all his goals around the net and is one of the best puck deflectors in the NHL. Almost every goal is scored within five feet of the net or by a deflection, so playing with a guy like Patrick Kane would be so fun to watch. Kane can make all world plays so a guy that good in the blue paint would be an upgrade for number 88 to work with.
Pavelski can play both center and wing so that would make him a swiss army knife for Jeremy Colliton and the coaching staff. Dominik Kahun played in all 82 games last year so they will also need to replace him in the lineup and now he is a member of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Pavelski could also fill in for anyone who gets hurt because of his ability to play many positions. In 2018-19 he missed seven games, that was the first time he had missed more than one game in a season since the 2010-11 season. The Blackhawks would be able to be confident he’ll be available.
If Pavelski would sign a three-year deal to take him to his age-37 season at anywhere between $7.5-8 million, that would be a sweet deal for the Hawks — as long as he kept producing at least a 30 goal pace, which he probably will.
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Joe might decide to stay out west but the Blackhawks could probably make a really interesting pitch to the veteran forward to try and win the Cup one time before his awesome career is over. It would absolutely have to be a short term deal though. Anywhere from 1-3 years and then go from there.