This horrible Chicago Blackhawks trade keeps coming up

The Chicago Blackhawks made a horribly bad trade after the 2016-17 season that set them back for years. They traded Artemi Panarin and Tyler Motte to the Columbus Blue Jackets in exchange for Brandon Saad, Anton Forsberg, and a fifth-round pick.

The trade was basically (for all intents and purposes) Saad for Panarin. The Blackhawks felt that they needed to bring back someone who was really good for them which makes sense. Saad is a great player and was even better back then.

However, Panarin was and still is a superstar, and anybody could have seen it coming. We were reminded of how bad this trade was on Sunday night when Panarin scored in overtime of game seven to send the New York Rangers to the second round. It was a power-play goal.

He signed with New York for a big-ticket because of how good he was in Columbus. The key is that he continued to be a star despite no longer having Patrick Kane on his line anymore. The Blackhawks let an 11 million dollar player go when he was on a team-friendly deal for two more years.

The Chicago Blackhawks’ mistake of trading Artemi Panarin continues to loom.

They might have even been able to extend him for less than 11 million dollars because of the fact that they had the Kane argument on their side. He also might have taken the hometown discount had they never traded him away.

There were a million ways for Chicago to make it work in terms of the salary cap. The salary cap is no excuse for letting Stan Bowman off the hook with this one. It was the worst trade that he made during his entire tenure as general manager and it isn’t even close.

Now, the Hawks traded Saad last year to the Colorado Avalanche and he finished out his contract with them. Last offseason, he signed with the St. Louis Blues and had a really good year. Chicago literally lost three Brandon Saad trades.

Now, both Saad and Panarin are in the second round while the Hawks have one of the bleakest futures in the National Hockey League. It is honestly a shame when you think about what has happened to this team.

Trading Panarin really led to a major downfall and it is going to take a long time to recover. Now, he and the Rangers will face the Carolina Hurricanes in the second round of the playoffs. Teuvo Teravainen (who they traded to get rid of Bryan Bickell) awaits him after having a dominant game seven himself over the Boston Bruins to get them there. This is brutal for Hawks fans.