Chicago Blackhawks: 3 players who can redeem themselves in playoffs

The Chicago Blackhawks made a terrible trade with the Buffalo Sabres last summer. They sent Henri Jokiharju to the Sabres in exchange for Alexander Nylander. No disrespect to Nylander, but he is a below-average forward and Jokiharju is a nice young defender. The Hawks have a lot of nice scorers on their team so adding Nylander in exchange for a young defenseman didn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Well, it proved to be a pretty bad trade as the season went on. Jokiharju had good times this season on Buffalo’s blue line despite the team being a complete dumpster fire. He still has a lot of growing to do but he certainly would have been better in the long term for the Hawks than Nylander will be but it is a done deal now.

Nylander had 10 goals and 16 assists for 26 points in 65 games played this season for Chicago. His work ethic has been challenged at times but the fact remains that he was a top-ten pick for a reason. He has skills that can help his team win if he commits to it. That could be the case for the Hawks in the playoffs against the Oilers if all goes well.

If he is able to redeem himself this playoff season, the team has yet another forward that can be awesome on a team loaded with those. All of these guys are really important to the top-six of this team, especially in the beast that is the playoffs. The Blackhawks are set up nicely if everyone contributes from up and down their lineup. Obviously, they have their work cut out for them but if anything needs to happen for them to win, it is getting contribution from everyone.