Chicago Blackhawks: Be careful what you wish for in free agency
July 1st is the start of free agency for the Chicago Blackhawks and that means new faces will be in new places but GMs have to be careful to not handcuff their teams.
The Chicago Blackhawks along with the rest of the NHL begin their free agency period today. Every team is going to look to take the guys who don’t have homes and try to convince them to come play for them if they want him. There are some big names out there like Matt Duchene, Artemi Panarin, and Sergei Bobrovsky but those names are probably ones you can forget about if you’re the Blackhawks.
There are other guys that may interest the team are more along the line of tier two players. There are also some restricted free agents that may need to be traded for or be given an offer sheet. These are all things that the Blackhawks could be interested in doing, and although them actually coming to fruition seems unlikely it could be done.
The thing is, the Blackhawks need to be careful. Free agency is a dangerous game. Sometime teams strike gold and get guys who impact your team for the exact price they are worth. Other times guys flop right away once they get paid and it looks like a terrible decision. The most likely outcome in free agency is the guy gets market value at the time of the deal but the term is way to long and starts to decline a few years before his contract is up.
A smart move for the Blackhawks would probably be to go after a guy like Ryan Dzingel. This is the type of player that would be perfect to fill out their forward group after some of the moves they have made so far this year. This guy is a proven scorer that can also bring a big game to this team that is a bit undersized up front. He had 26 goals and 30 assists for 56 points in 78 games last season split between the Ottawa Senators and the Columbus Blue Jackets.
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The important thing is to not put themselves in a position where they are in cap trouble once again in two to three years. They finally can see their way clear of the cap a little bit so now isn’t the time to ruin that. Free agency day can always be a fun day for hockey fans, but teams have to be really careful. The smartest thing the Blackhawks can do is sit back and watch their rivals hand out bad contracts and rely on their trades and draft picks to come in an make an impact in 2019-20.