The Chicago Blackhawks have made another trade, acquiring Tyler Johnson from the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Lightning will also be sending a 2023 second-round pick, while Chicago will send Brent Seabrook’s contract back to Tampa Bay. Seabrook is not expected to play again, meaning his contract can be moved to long-term injured reserve. Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic reports that there was no salary retained in the deal. Tampa Bay GM Julien BriseBois released a short statement about the move:
I’d like to personally thank Tyler for what he has meant to this organization over the past nine years since he joined the Lightning as an undrafted free agent. He played a pivotal role in the success the team has enjoyed and will forever be remembered as two-time Stanley Cup Champion with the Bolts. We wish him all the best in Chicago.
Not only does moving Johnson’s contract open up $5MM in cap space for the Lightning, but acquiring Seabrook’s doesn’t really cause them much issue. It will be tricky, managing the cap without accruing any space during the regular season while in LTIR, but the Lightning have shown they are more than willing to operate in that manner, acquiring dead contracts like Anders Nilsson and Marian Gaborik in the past. The team now essentially has cleared Johnson’s entire $5MM in cap space, though the machinations of LTIR will force them into very specific moves as the season approaches.
Still, ridding themselves of Yanni Gourde through the expansion draft and Johnson through this trade has basically fixed the Lightning’s cap issues, giving them some wiggle room to fill out the depth chart.
So quickly things change in Chicago though, as now Seabrook and fellow franchise icon Duncan Keith are both gone from the organization. Just a year ago Seabrook’s contract looked like one of the worst in the league, but now that he’s not expected to play again, it actually became an asset for the Blackhawks. They added a second-round pick while also landing a player who can help them next season without giving up anything of real value.
Johnson, 30, has three years left on his contract and should actually see an offensive uptick with increased usage in Chicago. Buried behind a long list of offensive talents in Tampa Bay, he’s not so far removed from the 29-goal season he had in 2018-19. In fact, there was a time when Johnson was among the Lightning’s best players, even leading the team in scoring with 72 points in 2014-15. While that might be a lofty goal to return to, he’s still an effective player that should help the Blackhawks compete for the playoffs next season. Add in that he’s now coming off back-to-back Stanley Cup championships and his $5MM cap hit starts to look awfully reasonable.
Anyone else still think Blackhawks miss playoffs?
refusal to rebuild will ruin this team
Chicago is honestly having such a bad offseason. So much money to probably miss the playoffs and set up an awful cap situation for the long term.
I disagree with this
Not really sure what you’re talking about. With Keith and Seabrook’s contracts gone, They now have Shaw on LTIR for this year and Fleury for one year at 7 million and then they can move on. Or move on now if he doesn’t want to come here.
I hated the Jones move, but Stan is having a better Free Agent trading season than he did a draft that’s for sure. After this year, the only bad contracts left are the Kane and Toews No Movement deals and maybe Jones if he doesn’t get with it. If Toews doesn’t make it there’s another 10 and half million on LTIR for a couple of years I think. I might be wrong. Johnson, Fleury and Jones are nice pieces. But I’m still not sold on the whole Bowman-Colliton collaboration. Bowman signed Kane and Toews to the big deals thinking the cap would go up and totally screwed the pooch there. Not that they weren’t worth it, but it’s been cap hell ever since.
Letting Tampa off easy here. I guess the rest of the league doesn’t mind a three-peat.
There’s always one sucker. They were never going to be in trouble.
And that one sucker is always Stan Bowman.
Thanks for everything Jonny!! Cap relief for a 2nd. Deal.
What in the hell is Chicago doing? I knew Bowman was a bad GM but jeez. How is he going to sign Hagel, Nylander and Zadorov now? I guess this means Zadorov is gone… unless he can find someone to take Connolly. He’s going to probably have to package someone like Nylander with Connolly to get rid of that garbage contract.
Don’t assess all moves in a day..what’s the entire off season strategy? Meaning, what other moves like this does he have up his sleeve…thinking outside the box today!
Being able to shed Nylander by any means would be addition by subtraction. If he’s the linchpin to move Connolly, I’m completely okay with that.
I agree with this
How is it even possible for the NHL to approve such blatant circumvention of the rules! It’s like their coke bottle thick glasses aren’t strong enough to see it. Joke.
Where is the circumvention if what they are doing is already legal?
It is the rules.. that’s the point. It’s circumventing if they were breaking rules.. they aren’t.
Seeing people bash Bowman as terrible when he’s moved out dead weight instead of giving away good players for nothing and acquires Fleury for nothing instead of passing on a free Vezina winner and realizing the GM of your team did the opposite…sigh.
Crazy isn’t it?
I’m waiting for people to start flying “Free Mikael Hakkarainen!!” banners…
I don’t like StanBo at all and I make that no secret, but people are losing their minds over the Fleury trade. If he decides to retire, we’re not on the hook for one red cent. Also, if Pitt were to come knocking, StanBo could still trade him there potentially. If he does play here, I’m all for it though.
Reportedly, our sackless librarian GM doesn’t want Fleury even though it makes sense of every single level.
Yesterday, I thought we’d end up settling for Andersen, then started thinking it will be even worse and Brian Elliot will be a Penguin. Now, we’ll end up with whatever scrub goalie when we could (not wishing, not hoping absolutely 100% could) have had Marc. Insane and moronic.
I have never seen a GM who wasn’t tanking have a worse 8 day stetch.
FTR-My first post was bashing Hextall, not praising Bowman. Though I do think his moves have actually been good this summer, I agree they are still not a good team.
rough day to be a sports fan in the state of PA
Chicago looks like they will make the playoffs this year. So far. They have successfully rid themselves of bad contracts and didn’t have to pay much to do it. They surged late last season, and have significantly upgraded their squad. People can hate bowman all they want, but I feel like he’s done well this off-season with what was left to work with.
No doubt the Hawks have improved themselves this summer. By how much is to be determined, but I’ve liked their moves so far.
In the meantime, Poile and the Preds look like 7th place finishers in the Central as things stand at the moment.
Getting fluery was great – if he retires it’s 7mil off the cap , if he plays pit wants him bad so you get something good in return plus cap relief and money to get a good goalie at 7mil plus like graubner
Who is graubner?
Michael Grabner? Didn’t they already try that? And I thought he retired…
Welp, even though it ended badly, I for one enjoyed watching Brent Seabrook play for the Hawks.
Recently the athletic did exit interviews with players league wide, and they rated the Chicago jersey (sweater if your a knob) as their favourite in the sport.
With this weeks news of the guardians renaming, the pending rebranding of the Washington football club, and recent hypersensitivity in Canada with regards to the “discovery” of residential school grave sites…gotta wonder when Chicago is up for rebranding.
I sure hope not. Though the Hawks have been pretty strong on not giving in to the fake virtue signaling crowd.
TSN was discussing this the other day and said it likely happens within 3 years.
They’ve also been pretty strong on not giving in to the sexual assault culture so maybe they should sit this one out.
Is there really the same outcry against the Blackhawks as there was against the Indians (not the correct term) or the Redskins (pretty much just a slur)? I personally would be sad if all Native American related teams changed their names.
The Black Hawks were named after chief Black Hawk. In about 86 they changed it to Blackhawks to simplify it for us simple white folk who had no understanding of the history. The Blackhawks owners claim that because they host Native American events at the arena they are more woke than other teams with some other questionable names. They may participate in creating greater awareness, but at the same time there are Native American groups who do still claim to be offended by the name/logo.
Not saying I agree one way or another, but I don’t think any new team would consider naming themselves something directed towards one ethnic group. Might make sense to change some of it up just to prevent future arguments either way.
Could you imagine a team applying for a name like the Minnesota Muslims or New Jersey Jews? Probably wouldn’t fly. Why should the antiquated ones stand?
Fluery trade will not get done. He will retire.