Chicago Blackhawks: Five players to trade this summer

The Blackhawks need to move on from all of the defensemen that aren’t particularly good skaters. We already talked about Brent Seabrook but Olli Maatta has a lot of the same problems. The Hawks acquired Maatta from the Pittsburgh Penguins last summer for Dominik Kahun and it hasn’t been all that good.

He provides only a little amount of offense and his defensive game is below average. He is a downgrade from Jokijarju and Nylander is a downgrade from Dominik Kahun so those two trades aren’t looking so good. The Hawks need to do what it takes to shore up their defense this summer and getting rid of Maatta would help with that.

Maatta is still on the younger side at 25 so it wouldn’t take much to move him as there should be some team out there willing to use him. He might be able to succeed in another system but in Chicago’s “run and gun” system he doesn’t fare well. He isn’t fast enough or a good enough skater to keep up with some of the players Chicago has. Hopefully, the Blackhawks are able to recognize some of the weaknesses in his game and either move him or do what is necessary to mask those weaknesses.