[Cali Panthers Fan]

To be fair, Saad coming back was a very quality asset as well, and had shown chemistry with his Hawk teammates in the past. In Columbus he had back to back years of 25 and 31 goals along with 50+ points. In fact, he had 4 straight full seasons of work where he was around the 50 point mark and anywhere between 20 and 30 goals. Unfortunately, Saad had a down year for him, and the whole team struggled in general. This would probably be the situation to not overreact and wait for Saad to bounce back to 25-30 goal status.

No doubt that Panarin is the better player overall, but you are forgetting that this move was largely because the Hawks couldn't afford to pay Panarin moving forward with their cap structure. Saad makes the same amount of money, but at least he's cost controlled for several seasons coming up, whereas Panarin will be a UFA in one more season and will likely command anywhere between 7-9 million as a nearly point per game player.

And don't forget the Hawks received Anton Forsberg who has been the defacto starter with Crawford's injury. He's done pretty well for a guy thrust into a starter's role with a .908 Sv%. Without him, the Hawks are looking at picking 1st overall this year as their other goalie in the system was J.F. Berube. Darling was in their system last year and moved on to Carolina (again, couldn't afford to pay him). They needed a halfway decent goalie as part of this trade.

Motte was a depth forward throw in to likely even out the contracts, but he'll never make as much impact on the team as Forsberg already has for Chicago.

I don't think this is really that bad of a trade at all. Not the best, but somewhat even when you look at all the factors combined.