Blackhawks and Jake Guentzel? One NHL Insider Thinks It Could Happen

As we continue to listen to podcasts and scour the interwebs for anything Blackhawks related because it’s the first week of June, one of the top insiders made a comment that grabbed my attention for a couple reasons.

Elliotte Friedman was on the Jeff Marek Show — yes, his co-host on “32 Thoughts” — and they talked about how the Blackhawks and Sharks are going to address their rosters around young core players this summer. The Sharks will be bringing in Will Smith and Macklin Celebrini to start the 2024-25 season; the Blackhawks already have Connor Bedard with a season under his belt and Frank Nazar, among others, coming.

Friedman mentioned a pending free agent on the Carolina Hurricanes roster that he thinks would be “the kind of player” the Blackhawks target. No, not Martin Nečas.

He mentioned Jake Guentzel.

“Guentzel is a midwest guy. Chicago is a midwest location. [The Blackhawks] realize they have to move things forward and they have to begin surrounding Bedard with some players. I’m going with Chicago because of the proximity to where Guentzel is from.”

Hello.

Let’s unpack this speculation — and keep in mind it is still speculation at this point, but it’s coming from an insider who doesn’t float things like this without some smoke somewhere to cause it.

Guentzel is from Omaha (no, Peyton Manning isn’t going to recruit him). So if we’re using the hometown location as a cause for a free agent signing, one could make the case that Denver and Minneapolis have as much claim to make as Chicago. So that’s one pause button…

HOWEVER, what do the Blackhawks have that the Wild and Avalanche lack? Cap space, y’all. And a lot of it.

I’ve referenced it previously and it’s worth bringing back to this conversation. Daily Faceoff posted their top 50 free agents and included contract projections based on a model provided by AFP Analytics. They have Guentzel’s projection at six years by $8M AAV. Colorado and Minnesota don’t have that coin available, even if the player would be a need-filler for both teams.

Here’s my second pause button. Guentzel will turn 30 around the start of the 2024-25 regular season. Yeah, he’s coming off a season in which he scored 30 goals in 67 games between Pittsburgh and Carolina, and the back of his hockey card tells us he’s put the puck in the net 227 times in 520 career regular-season games. But we cannot ignore his age.

In fact, one of the reasons’ I support the Blackhawks targeting Nečas is because he’s five years younger than Guentzel; a $7-7.5M cap hit for him (which is the projection) would probably age better than a comparable number for the player five years his senior.

The good news I take away from this rumor — and its source — is that there is a perception outside Chicago that the Blackhawks could play in the deep waters financially this summer for the first time in a few years. And certainly the first time since Kyle Davidson was installed as the permanent general manager.

Davidson’s comments at the end of the regular season told us they want to get better now, but we’ve all pondered the “how much better” thought since then because the number of veterans getting long-term deals limits the number of roster spots available for prospects as they matriculate to the NHL level.

The Blackhawks do want to surround Bedard with better players (with all due respect to Philipp Kurashev and the others who spent significant time with him during his rookie season). Guentzel would be a terrific add; the Canes desperately want to keep him — which is partially why Nečas might be available. But recent indications are that he’ll at least test the waters on July 1 to see how the league responds to him being an unrestricted free agent.

It’s exciting that the Blackhawks are tied to a player like Guentzel because I think for many of us, that’s a higher pay grade than we thought the Blackhawks would dance with this summer. But have to we’ll wait and see if Chicago actually does go that deep in the free agent pool.