Wow. I can't believe that Dallas made this deal.
It isn't to say that Matt Duchene is undeserving of this new contract; he earned it. I am just shocked that Dallas irresponsibly gave him this contract. Yet, they have. Four years at $4.5 million per season. This move guarantees that Dallas will have to move players off of their current roster to be able to re-sign their multiple unrestricted and restricted free agents.
So, could the Hawks make out like bandits here by helping the Stars shed cap space? I think so.
The big name that has been floated as a potential salary cap casualty for the stars is their young star winger, Jason Robertson.
Robertson is a multi-time 40-goal scorer, and at only 25 he would be an extremely tempting addition for this current Hawks squad. So why would Dallas consider getting rid of him? Well, as I mentioned, they are in salary cap hell, and they want to keep their current Stanley Cup window open.
They still need to re-sign Jamie Benn, Mavrick Bourque, Colin Blackwell, and Mikhail Granlund. That is going to be hard to do with less than $5 million in projected cap space, according to Spotrac.
Furthermore, their addition and re-signing of Mikko Rantanen on the wing has simply made Robertson expendable. His $7.750 million cap hit is simply a pill too large for them to swallow next season if they want to ice a full team.
They also have Matt Dumb and Ilya Lyubushkin making a combined $7.0 million. Those two players are completely expendable at this point, but neither played well enough to be moved without Dallas having to give up assets to move them.
So here is where the Hawks could come in.
The Blackhawks have $25 million of cap space this offseason and could comfortably take on multiple contracts that Dallas wishes to shed. Here is one trade possibility that can help the Blackhawks get better while easing the Stars' cap concerns.
