After last night's stunning trade from the Chicago Blackhawks shortly before the end of Sunday Night Football, there was a lot of buzz on social media. Nick Schmaltz was a name thrown around by the organization as being the future. I'm pretty sure this summer GM Stan Bowman stated that the biggest priority in terms of contracts for the next offseason was getting Schmaltz and rising star Alex DeBrincat under new contracts before their respective RFA periods. But as many of us know, hockey is an ever-changing sport, and if you aren't getting results, things change quickly.
I wrote a little bit about my initial thoughts to the trade on Facebook that night. Here's that for you,
"This is one of those trades that I don't really know how I feel about it yet. Mainly because we really don't know how these three players are going to turn out as its only their second season in the NHL. It'll be easier to see if this was a good decision two to three years from now.
Strome has unfortunately been mainly a disappointment in Arizona so far. But putting him back with his OHL linemate Alex DeBrincat could get him productive at the NHL level. Perlini had a fantastic rookie season last year but is having an off year so far. Schmaltz wasn't shooting like the Blackhawks wanted him to, but still was quick and had good hands.
So I'm curious to see what happens. I don't hate this trade, and I don't love it. So we'll just have to see how these players develop."
I still feel sort of roughly the same about fifteen hours later. It's something that is really difficult to tell who got the better end of the deal right now. It was very much based on hoping a change of scenery would spark all three of these players into better production. The Blackhawks were obviously not happy with how Schmaltz has been playing for them this season. Especially with a new coach and a new system, things weren't clicking.
Schmaltz was asked several times this season to shoot more and pass less. He still only has 33 shots on goal after 24 games this season. If he was still on the Blackhawks roster, he would be in between two rookies Dominik Kahun and David Kampf. Which are definitely not the numbers you need out of someone you hoped to be the long-term answer at second line center.
And speaking of numbers with Schmaltz, his faceoff percentage for the year 43.3%. That puts him as having the worst faceoff percentage of the four regularly playing centers for the Blackhawks. Looking at the numbers and Schmaltz basic trends, it actually isn't as much of a surprise as to why he was traded.
Luckily for the Blackhawks, they were able to get two players for the price of one, even if it did shrink their salary cap space a little more than before. One of the big immediate upsides to this trade is that Dylan Strome, the center of the two, has a very good faceoff percentage. He's at 58% at the dot on the season so far, which would put him about even with Blackhawks captain and 1st line center Jonathan Toews. But on the downside, he's not producing anywhere near what was expected of him coming from the OHL.
Strome's production was so much anticipated that he was drafted 3rd in an incredibly stacked 2015 NHL Draft that included the likes of Connor McDavid, Jack Eichel, Noah Hanifin, Zack Werenski, and Mitch Marner. (There are also about another half dozen younger players I could mention in that list, but I thought limiting it to 5 would give you a good idea of that draft class.) So the fact that he's averaging only a couple goals for 20 games played for the past couple seasons is quite concerning.
As opposed to when he was in the OHL and producing around forty goals in playing 60 games. Strome played for the Erie Otters and was on the top line with Alex DeBrincat and a guy named Connor McDavid. So ya know, some pretty decent players there to be with. One of the hopes for the Blackhawks definitely has to be that putting Strome back with DeBrincat will make him that productive again. Because scoring a goal every other game or so is something the Blackhawks desperately need right now.
So there's a pretty high ceiling for Strome if he can return to his OHL form while in Chicago. Also, I started writing this before his first game with the team. And in his Blackhawks debut, Strome scored a goal and had an assist while on a line with Patrick Kane and Alex DeBrincat. Which from my perspective seems to be a very good sign that his production will go up at least a little with this trade.
Now the wildcard of this trade for me is Brendan Perlini, the other piece in the trade to Chicago. He was also a first-round draft pick for the Arizona Coyotes back in 2014. Perlini played for the Niagra Ice Dogs in the OHL and in his last two seasons scored around 25 goals for 60 games played.
I'll be honest, Perlini is not someone I can remember having watched play before when he was in juniors. Probably because he's from England and they haven't had a team at the World Juniors tournament in December in recent memory. But from what I've heard on the internet, he seems to be a strong forward with fast feet.
I wasn't able to watch his debut game, but it seems like he's someone good to have as a depth forward. He's also been put on a line with Jonathan Toews and Brandon Saad, so I think the organization thinks highly of him at this point. And he grew up a Chicago Blackhawks fan, so it's always nice to see guys play for the team they grew up rooting for.
It's interesting though as I just read Arizona GM John Chayka's comments on the two players. He basically said that hoping the two will reach their possible ceiling wasn't enough to keep them around in Arizona. Also, these players are 21 and 22 years old respectively. They still have a couple years to reach that potential before the hockey community would see them as a bust.
But hey, hopefully, Arizona's loss is Chicago's gain. The Blackhawks already have a strong defensive prospect pool with Adam Boqvist, Ian Mitchell, and Nicholas Beaudin waiting in the wings for the next couple of seasons. So they needed to shore up their forward depth as they've either traded their better forward prospects away with bad contracts (ie Teuvo Teravainen I still miss him) or their picks have been busts.
So the pickup of both Strome and Perlini for Schmaltz seems to be a fair trade at this point. But as I said earlier, it's still a little too early to see if either team has "won" this trade. Give the kids a couple years to develop and then I think we'll know how well this works out for both teams. I personally am hoping for the best on both sides of this trade. But we'll see how this all plays out for everyone in the near future.