Hawks GM Afraid of Success??

[notoepik]

The Chicago Blackhawks have been on a roll. A recent flurry of trades that brought in Olli Jokinen, Marian Hossa and Jere Lehtinen have seen the Hawks go on a tear moving into a playoff spot.

Now a turn of events in Chicago has seen one of these promising trades turn around. The GM has shipped Jere Lehtinen (a personal favorite) to Montreal. Also gone in the deal is Zenon Konopka. Although 25 years old and cheap, and scoring at a torrid pace in the alternate universe of the NHL farm, he was expendible. (The Hawks only wish they could have gotten Hank Sedin for him instead of Viktor Kozlov )

Coming to Chicago to continue the building process is young and studly Tuomo Ruutu. Talk to a Finn, and he will tell you, Ruutu is almost godlike in the world of hockey. Barring injury, he is set to lite the hockey world on fire. And it is pretty nifty to have pics of him already in a Chicago jersey LOL. Also coming to the Windy City is Zach Parise. Parise is an 8.0A according to Hockeyfuture know it alls. TSN says Parise "is a supremely intelligent player. Never stops hustling and possesses the heart of a winner. Has leadership qualities, despite his youth."

Both players are currently top 6 for their respective parallel universe teams. We will take that.

Hopefully Kozlov can somewhat fill Lehtinen's skates.

The trade breaks down like this

To Montreal

1. Lehtinen, Jere (LW) CPHL
2. Konopka, Zenon (C) CPHL
3. 2007 2nd Round Draft Choice (chi)
4. 2 million wisely spent dollars

To Chicago

1. Ruutu, Tuomo (RW) CPHL
2. Parise, Zach (C) AHL
3. Viktor Kozlov (RW) CPHL

[Knut]

Good deal all around... more good young building blocks for becky

[Noops]

Great deal for Beck

[flambers]

Good deal for both teams.....

[Sylvanfan]

Lehtinen is a tough one. The guy seems to have a bit of a bad back, but when he's healthy he's a very solid hockey player and has always been a good guy to have in the SIM. IIRC he signed a 5 year extension with the Stars so I imagine he'll hang around for a while. Long term I think this is a nice deal for the Hawks because I like Parise, and Ruutu is a guy I think Denis Savard will get a lot of mileage out of. Kozlov also isn't a bad guy to have in the SIM, or against the NHL Rangers! But Lehtinen will produce now, and he'll produce next year, and likely the year after. I think it's a good deal for both sides.

KG paid what seemed like a heft price to get Lehtinen two years ago. In the Stanley Cup him and Demitra absolutely crushed me. I commend Beerfund for having the guts to make a move like this to try and get an edge in a very tough conference. It's a lot safer and easier to not make this deal in my opinion. Beerfund knows he has a good team that has a legitimate shot and he's making a move for it now. Good on you!

[Beerfund]

GM Beerfund defended the latest deal by saying we needed to take action, and needed to do it now.
Three things lead up to this deal.
1. A while back we traded Shanahan and Fehr for Fedorov and Parise. In doing so we lost a very good PK guy in Shanahan.
2. Parise and Ruutu, while very talented forwards, potential allstars, were not in a position to help our club this season.
3. We entertained offers ranging from low ball bids to elite talented forwards, to young talent mixed with picks and cash.

Ultimately, we chose Lehtinen. First because he is versitile and experienced, second because he is strong defensively. One of the offers we considered was for a very skilled set-up man. While his UFA status was a concern ultimately I ended up taking a player essentially at the cap max. So had I tossed 10M at the UFA I'm sure his agent would have found a hard time refusing. Lehtinen, filled a defensive hole and can also be used offensively. While the other forward was extrememly skilled offensively but suffered defensively. We opted for the lower rated, more rounded forward.

We also turned down several packages of younger players as they didn't help our club this year. We felt that what was being offered did not have the long term potential of Parise and Ruutu, so we resisted those offers.

Looking back to the Shanahan deal, it breaks down like this:
Shanahan (79 OV, 37yrs old UFA)
Prospects: Fehr, Ruutu (Both 72 or less with significant cphl shortcomings in ratings)
FOR
Fedorov 79 OV 36yrs old and signed into next year
Lehtinen 78 OV 33 yrs old and signed for two more years
2nd round draft pick

We look at the deal like this - right now and into the playoffs we like the Fedorov/Lehtinen combo, this summer I'm sure we will like to have the combination of Parise and Ruutu. The determining factor is: Does it move us closetr to a championship, we believe it does.

We completely forgot about Kozlov as he was not being used often, and had a big salary, and is UFA. The hawks were clsoe to the Cheese max, this allowed us to dump a contract instead of having Becky cover more of Lehtinen's salary. Thus we added Konopka to compensate.