Taking Advantage of Chicago

Chicago will have success this season, that’s guaranteed. But this off-season will be on of cap-crunching for rookie GM Stan Bowman. He’ll have help from his daddy, but I think the Hawks will lose some important players. And that’s were Ottawa comes in…

The team is 5-2-0 to start the season, which is great. If they are going to steadily play like they have, they should figure to be in 6th spot for most of the season. The thing that can take them over the top is a trade. A trade for a No.1 defenseman. The team is still lacking one, but they can certainly get one. They have all the pieces to pull of a big trade, and I think Chicago may be a trading partner to deal with.

Looking at the stats, the Hawks have $385,000 in cap space. They have 3 UFA’s and 8 RFA’s in the 2010/11 off-season. If they let Madden, Ebbett, and Burish walk, that still won’t be enough. Now Ottawa can help them by getting one of their premier, yet expensive defenseman. Trade for Campbell or Barker IMO. Those two cost some money and moving one out will allow Chicago to at least sign it’s two young supertars, Kane and Toews. Here’s some trades I would suggest.

To Ottawa: Brian Campbell
To Chicago: Filip Kuba, Chris Kelly, Brian Lee

OR

To Ottawa: Cam Barker
To Chicago: Alexandre Picard, Brian Lee, SJ 2nd round pick