We all know the Chicago Blackhawks are going to have to deal with their salary cap situation before next season, but the idea of the team dealing a major player now won’t go away. It came up again Wednesday in a report from ESPN’s Pierre LeBrun, who said it’s been part of “gossip shared among scouts and team executives around the league.”
Patrick Sharp and Bryan Bickell are two names that have been “thrown around in” the context of trades, per LeBrun, although he cautions he’s not buying the rumor. We recently considered the scenario, and while we noted it might be so crazy, it’s not surprising to hear it’s unlikely.
“I’m here to tell you that I don’t believe Hawks general manager Stan Bowman would move either player before the March 2 trade deadline, nor any of his core guys,” LeBrun said. The ‘Hawks were always planning for a quiet deadline given their talented and expensive roster, and it would take a major injury to a key player to get the Blackhawks to consider bigger moves.
However, it’s been bandied around enough that LeBrun wrote about it, and we’ll probably continue to hear rumblings about the team’s cap situation throughout the month. We don’t need to break down the pros and cons of the idea at length so soon after devoting a post to the idea, but the idea of trading Sharp or Bickell isn’t going away.