Why did Blackhawks trade Bryan Bickell and Teuvo Teravainen?

The Blackhawks trading Bryan Bickell and Teuvo Teravainen makes a lot more sense than you might think. 

Many people are confused as to why the Chicago Blackhawks traded one of their top young players in Teuvo Teravainen in order to get rid of Bryan Bickell’s contract. However, the move makes a lot more sense than most people think. It was a move that had to be done. The rest of the league knew that they had to get rid of Bickell to clear cap space.

Chicago had to pay the price for being an extremely good team. When you’re a team as successful as Chicago, often times you find players who want raises. You can’t give everyone raises, so you have to choose who to give raises too. While Stan Bowman is a great general manager who has generally done a lot more good moves than bad moves, he made an unwise decision by deciding to give Bickell over $4 million per season.

It’s a move that has hurt Chicago in a variety of ways. Aside from the obvious cap implications of the contract, the trade inadvertently forced them to trade Brandon Saad to the Columbus Blue Jackets and Patrick Sharp to the Dallas Stars.

Carolina was in a position of power, knowing that the Blackhawks had to get rid of Bickell’s contract. The Hurricanes were able to take on all of Bickell’s cap space. In exchange, they wanted Teravainen for paying all of Bickell’s 2016-17 season. Bowman was willing to pay an extravagant price to get rid of arguably his biggest mistake.

With the Bickell trade, the Blackhawks now have approximately $8 million of cap space. That gives them enough breathing room to make some upgrades and sign their key free agents, but it sure came at an expensive price. Time will tell if it was worth it.

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