NOW COMES THE EASY STUFF
With big trades out of way, GM Davidson might move Domi, Athanasiou
With the complicated moves out of the way, the Blackhawks now will move into the more straightforward rental market in the final days before the NHL trade deadline Friday.
General manager Kyle Davidson had his hands full the last few days while sorting out the intricacies of deals with the Maple Leafs and Rangers, sending Jake McCabe and Sam Lafferty to Toronto and Patrick Kane to New York. Being in Pacific time on the Hawks’ road trip didn’t make things any easier, either.
“I don’t think anything is like this,” Davidson said Tuesday after finalizing the Kane trade. “This is so unique. I’m early into my tenure as a GM, and I think this will be the first and last time I deal with something like this.”
By comparison, flipping pending freeagent forwards Max Domi and Andreas Athanasiou would be much simpler. There’s no guarantee either gets traded, but they’re the most likely candidates among the remaining Hawks.
They’re on identical one-year contracts — with $3 million salary-cap hits — that expire at season’s end, making them obvious “rentals.” They’re represented by the same agent, Darren Ferris. They’re good enough to draw interest but not so valuable that they’ll warrant big, complex return packages.
“[We’re] remaining open to any ideas that are thrown our way,” Davidson said. “We didn’t sign them just to be traded. We signed them because we liked them as players, and we thought they could push a certain style of play, which they’ve done an excellent job at. [But] it’s a business, so we have to do our due diligence.”
Domi has been excellent lately, ripping off a seven-game point streak in which he notched 14 points and 25 shots on goal before the Hawks’ loss Tuesday to the Coyotes.
The center has 49 points in 60 games, and he’s going to end up having the second-best season of his career. That makes him one of the most productive players left on the market.
He has so greatly exceeded expectations, in fact, that an extension — now or in the summer, whether or not he’s traded this week — is a very real possibility. The Hawks will need players to fill out next season’s ros
ter and hit the salary floor, and Domi has quickly become a well-liked leader.
“I’ve said from Day 1 that I love playing here, so we’ll see how it pans out,” Domi said in January.
Davidson insisted Monday that he’s “not at all” concerned about hitting the floor next season, even though the Hawks’ current contracts put them about $20 million short. So he clearly has some things planned.
Athanasiou, meanwhile, has roughly matched expectations this season, providing elite speed and moderate production. The winger has 22 points, including 14 goals, in 59 games.
Domi is on his fifth team and Athanasiou his fourth, so the league has a pretty good idea of what both have to offer. The question becomes: What can the Hawks get in exchange?
The Capitals’ trade of Lars Eller to the Avalanche on Wednesday was bad (eliminating a possible suitor) and good (setting a high price precedent). The Capitals received a 2025 second-round pick for Eller, who has only 16 points but is stellar defensively.
Other rental-forward reference points include the Islanders acquiring Pierre Engvall (21 points) for a third-round pick, the Wild acquiring Marcus Johansson (28 points) for a third-round pick and the Golden Knights acquiring Ivan Barbashev (29 points but 60 last season) for Zach Dean (a first-round pick two years ago).
All that suggests the Hawks could conceivably get at least a second-round pick for Domi and third- or fourth-round pick for Athanasiou. But that depends on finding interested trading partners and pulling the trigger.