Could Brandon Saad Be Headed To Boston?
UPDATE:
Of course moments after this is published there are reports Boston made a deal for a forward.
First round pick, David Backes and a prospect to Anaheim https://t.co/eIyKASGurk
— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) February 21, 2020
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Multiple outlets are reporting the Boston Bruins are interested in Brandon Saad.
Great. Sounds terrific. A good team is interested in a good player on the Blackhawks. And they might pay a premium to get him.
But how could that deal look if it were to happen?
Let’s address two issues with a Saad-to-Boston deal.
First, what would the compensation look like for Chicago?
Any deal involving Saad would need to start with a first round pick. Boston has one in 2020, but it obviously won’t be a lottery pick. So Chicago would be getting a pick that likely would end up in the late-20s. Good start.
What about re-stocking the Blackhawks’ pipeline? Chicago has depth on the blue line coming (assuming they can sign Ian Mitchell) but there aren’t many impact forwards in the system.
The first name I would want in a deal is John Beecher. He turns 19 on April 5 and is a freshman at the University of Michigan. Boston drafted him 30th overall in the 2019 NHL Draft. Listed at 6-3 and 210 pounds, Beecher has seven goals and seven assists in 25 games this year for the Wolverines.
Before the 2019 draft, McKeen’s said “Between his size and his balance, [Beecher] likes to play in front of the opposing goaltender, where he can be near impossible to dislodge.” HockeyProspect.com said, “[Beecher] has a really good understanding of how to use his body to shield pucks and win battles on the boards.”
A big center? Sounds great! Adding Beecher up front to Jonathan Toews and Kirby Dach sounds like a lineup that can do damage in the Central Division.
Another name that would be nice is Trent Frederic. The Bruins’ first round pick in 2016 (29th overall), Frederic is currently playing for Boston’s AHL affiliate where he has 26 points in 50 games. He just turned 22 on Feb. 11 and, like Beecher, is a left-handed shooting center. He’s listed at 6-2 and 200 pounds, so there’s more size for the Blackhawks.
Whether or not Boston would give up two of their top prospects and a first round pick could be tricky; Boston hasn’t traditionally liked to part ways with top prospects.
But making this deal happen would require some creative math, which brings us to the second consideration when considering Boston as a potential partner for a Saad deal.
The elephant int he room that would need to be addressed is the Bruins’ lack of cap space. According to CapFriendly the Bruins have $84,450 in deadline cap space right now.
That number includes $4.925M in dead money on David Backes. His contract has a $6M AAV with one year remaining after the 2019-20 season – the same number as Saad.
Boston would love to move Backes’ contract. And the Blackhawks have cap space available this year to absorb some/all of his cap hit if they were to move Saad.
But Backes does nothing to help the Chicago Blackhawks. At 35, Backes isn’t an NHL regular any longer and any thought that Backes would somehow help the Blackhawks get back into the playoffs next year should be thrown in a trash can the Astros are no longer banging on when someone calls for a curveball.
So what happens if Backes’ deal is included in a trade for Saad? Chicago might need to do that to make the deal work financially for Boston.
Hypothetically, the Hawks could buyout Backes this summer. The result of that would be a $4M cap hit in 2020-21 and a $1M cap hit in 2021-22. That number is $2M lower than Saad’s cap hit for next year, but it would be dead weight for the Blackhawks to carry with some players they need to pay. So the help wouldn’t be significant for the Blackhawks.
Boston could also retain salary on Backes if he were part of the deal. That doesn’t help the Bruins as much as they would like, and would probably limit the caliber of prospects the Blackhawks got in return. But it’s an option.
However a deal were to be put together, Chicago would need to take considerable money back from Boston to make the math work. And Saad is playing well enough to garner a strong package in return. Boston has the prospects and picks to put together something that might entice Stan Bowman to pull the trigger, but Chicago would need to be flexible to eat some money in the process.
Hey Tab Good article. I would do the deal. Do you have any idea what the asking price for Big Buff is from Winnipeg ?
Return would have to be high. Cap friendly show Bruins with 3.121m tdl cap space so Blackhawks retaining 50% of Saads contract should be able to make math work if that is correct and add to the return too, plus have 3m dead money next year . Like the idea of couple of prospects vs picks alot better.
Beecher yes, Frederic no. Age 22 and generating just a half point per game in AHL. Doesn’t look promising to make NHL. Of course, wouldn’t be surprised if Bowman screws up the Saad trade.
Bruins make deal with Ducks that includes Backes and first round pick. Too late, Blackhawks?
I continue to wonder how much urgency Stan has in making something happen. He is sooo on the way out. I still expect the Blackhawks to make a deal. At this point I really feel like we should temper our expectations…
If that was return glad it didn’t happen
I would think most people would have temper expections. If they don’t, they aren’t paying attention.
Knowing Bowman we will get fleeced. So over his bad deals. The Strome deal does not wash away years of garbage. The man can draft but he certainly can’t trade.
Enough with big buff!!! See what’s happens when you bring back Saad, Shaw, Sharp, Campbell….nothing comes good.
Again Bowman won’t don’t anything major, maybe minor minor deals. Why would he jeopardize a really great PLAYOFF TEAM he assembled?!!
Lehner will walk, Gus will still be here(asking too much for demand), Saad still here.
We will relive 1999-2006 again!!
Late first round picks typically years a. way from making a valid contribution. Should be a future consideration clause to get a second first rounder with a cup win. Saad could be what brings Boston back to the finals.
Find a taker for D cat and Strome please …..not Saad
Ian would not mind Al MacIssac taking over and bringing in Gallant. My only hope is that if no trades are made , maybe just maybe Bowman was told to do nothing and he is gone at the end of the season. I can only hope
StanBo was probably asking for a larger haul than Boston would part with. Besides, I don’t want Backes any where near this team. We have enough dead weight.
Maybe what is going on is that Bowman has been told that he is to make only 2 moves.Lehner and Gus both traded.All in preparation for the end of the season firing of the entire hockey operations staff.If you are truly starting over,I am not big on keeping MacIssac.He is s big part of what is here now.My belief is that there will be a new G.M ,Head Coach,and scouting staff in place before the Draft.
Saad It would be a nice return if you can get Backes a 1st round pick and a 2nd round pick
If I am Bowman and the handwriting is on the wall,I do the mutual parting of the ways thing instead of going through the firing.On a separate subject,how is Boqvist in the lineup tonight after that display Wednesday night?Part of the learning process is understanding that ice time is earned and that there are repercussions for terrible play.
With a grand total of ZERO power forwards of any value in the org other than Saad I don’t see it. We have two obvious trading chips of value in Lehner and Gus, plus a whole bunch of possibles if anyone is interested (e.g. Strome, Carpenter, Smith,..) so lots of cards to play in order to fill the pipeline. Unless it would get us into the top 5 or a very blue chip prospect we are better off keeping Saad.
Tim, I think there is no way Rocky cleans house. Also on MacIssac , we don’t know if he agreed with what Bowman did or not. Under your thinking if a boss ( in any work environment gets fired) no way should the assistant get a promotion because they were part of the problem as well. I don’t agree with that assessment
I say no to Saad. The only legitimate NHL forward on this team beyond Kane and Kubalik. But hey, Stan never does the right thing, so it won’t surprise me if we get a bag of hammers and a 4th round pick in return.
Bobby I understand and agree with your analysis if we were talking about a pedestrian business or organization.From a Major Sports team rebuild aspect though,I think if you are doing a total rebuild you dont want anybody remaining from the previous regime.If MacIsaac had a different vision or opinion and it was continually disregarded,I would not want him leading the rebuild.He would want to keep many of the staff that is there.You don’t want to fire your friends in lower places.
Tim that woud be a pretty foolish reason to miss out on what could be a very good choice.
Ian That is the exact problem with so called rebuilds.Thinking that only the G.M.is responsible and keeping everything else in place thinking that you have had a hidden gem.The question is,does the owner truly want the organization to have a new direction or not.Are MacIsaac,s views and philosophy totally different from Bowmans?Rocky better have already done the leg work on those questions and have a clear vision on how they are moving forward.
The Hawks I don’t believe are going into a total rebuild nor should they as long as T and K are in CHI
People should be retained or fired based on their performance – I don’t know anything about McIssac’s performance so he may or not be the best candidate but I do think you want the best candidate possible to be GM not just promote from within because that’s the organization’s way of doing things
That’s what the Hawks always did when Bill Wirtz was around – not hire the best guy just hire a loyalist from within – it hardly ever works out positively
Wrap totally agree on hiring best available, talked about that on previous post and what he could bring. Should his views be totally different, hope not everybody should want to win first. How to accomplish that, definitely think his views there would bring a welcome change to alot of posters here.
Speaking of genius GMs couldn’t help but notice that Denis Malgin was playing top 6 (alongside Tavares) last night for TOR vs PIT
Malgin was traded to TOR by Tallon a couple of days ago – so Tallon traded someone who can play with Tavares to the team that FLA is neck and neck with in the playoff race – I guess Dale’s genius here is really subtle because I’m not seeing it
If Stan had made a trade like that Hull65’s head would explode in ALL CAPS!
It’s the same sort of genius that saw Tallon deal Marchessault to VGK – it must be a real long term genius though because I’m still not seeing it
Darren Dreger reporting that Hawks acquired rights to Ilya Sorokin, top Russian goalie prospect from the Isles.
Dreger just retracted his previous tweet. He’s sorry.
Actually, he said, my mistake.
Wrap – There is an ESPN article today listing 7 trades they would like to see. One is Trocheck from the Panthers to Buffalo for Ristolainen. In the article they hammer Dale Tallon at some length. Also watched part of the Kings-Panthers game last night. Bobrovsky looked awful – gave up 5 goals to a Kings lineup that looked like it belonged in the AHL. The signing of Bob may go down as the worst contract in history.
A lot of GMs would have offered that contract, MS. He’s been inconsistent but so has the entire team.
I respectfully disagree – no team was offering $10m per year for 7 years and he hasn’t been inconsistent he has been bad.
His numbers are down for sure. But the Panthers are 28th out of 31 teams in goals allowed per game (3.34). I would not place that entirely at the feet of the goaltender.
Ted Lehner has been terrific except for a few starts lately, imagine the Bowman is an idiot posts here if he was comparable to Bobrovsky this season.
Hey Wrap , we have a guy named Drake Caggula playing on our top line ,who cares where Malgin plays . Sometimes underwhelming players get an opportunity to do that .
Says a lot about both Toronto and Chicago .
MS, right after Tallon signed Bob to that insane contract I posted that people should stop wishing he was still our GM. A worse signing than Seabrook.
Eakin from the Vegas Nights to the Jets for a fourth round pick. Not having a good year stats wise and has only played in 40 games + / – but he`s only 28 and a Winnipeg native. He might fit in very nicely on the Jets roster. Heck, I`d rather have Eakin between Kane and Saad as our second line center than Carpenter. There was opportunity at times prior to and during this season ( and with all our LTIR space ) to add some better pieces to our roster than we have now, Eakin being one, Chandler Stephenson, Erik Gudbrandson, being others and Burkovsky as well who was traded to the Avalanche only two days before we went out and traded for Andrew Shaw at a near identical package of draft picks. All hindsight of course but in reality our pro-scouting has got to do a better job identifying the right players to target. That`s not to say you`ll get a deal done with that particular trading partner but boy does it ever look like we always end up with sloppy seconds.
Hawks 2015 – I know Malgin is not real top 6 player but the the bigger point is he’s a useful player to a team that Tallon Panther’s are in a death match with for the playoffs
TOR had a need for a bottom 6 player who could play in a top 6 role if needed and Tallon obliged – Caggiula in CHI is a fair comparison
So why is Dale trading a Caggiula type player to his most heated enemy?
Tallon just made TOR better at FLA’s expense is the point – Marchment didn’t dress for FLA last night – maybe he’s still not with the team yet since they’re on the west coast but if he does get in the line up let’s see if he lines up in the top 6 even tempoarily
At this point…Big Buff drunk off of a BUI..boating under the influence could do a better job than Bowman, aka little ricky with his crash helmet. I gotta believe Bowman and the JCrew model coach Colliton are done ..at least Stan. Please God.