Chicago Blackhawks' Worst Trade Of The Past Year

Though the Chicago Blackhawks have made lots of trades over the past year including a number of big deals moving out key players, not many of them have actually been good. In a lot of the trades, the Blackhawks got much less than they should have in return. There are three trades in particular I want to highlight and get to the bottom of what is the worst of them.

The first and most recent of the three came at this year's trade deadline when the Blackhawks finally moved Patrick Kane. Although the cards were completely in Kane's hands and he only wanted to go to the New York Rangers, Chicago couldn't even get a first round pick. A part of the package was a conditional second round pick that does upgrade to a first if the Rangers make the conference finals, but the East is difficult to go deep in this year. On top of that they got a 2025 fourth round pick and prospect Vili Saarijarvi. The Blackhawks did the best they could with the situation Kane put them in and it's better than nothing, but not great.

We're now going to go back to last offseason when the Blackhawks really set the course by trading a couple of young key players in Alex Debrincat and Kirby Dach. DeBrincat was sent to the Ottawa Senators for a 2022 first and second round pick as well as a 2024 fourth round pick. Dach was sent to the Montreal Canadiens right after that for a 2022 first and third round pick. We can talk about how it was a poor decision to trade good young players that would help them get out of a rebuild, but more so Dach than DeBrincat, it was very off considering he was 21 years old when the trade occurred.

The difference between the returns was a second round pick when DeBrincat was already a two-time 40-goal scorer and solidified top-six player. Debrincat should have gotten a return at least close to what the San Jose Sharks got for Meier considering they have the same cap hit, are RFAs at the end of the year, and the Senators got DeBrincat for the entire season. Instead, it was a shocking return as the 24-year-old star was moved for less than he could have. This is why the trade to get rid of DeBrincat was the worst Blackhawks' trade of the past year.