By Mark Lazerus, Scott Powers and Chris Johnston
The final time the Blackhawks coaxed a second-round select of the Vancouver Canucks to tackle a supposedly unhealthy contract, they landed Jason Dickinson, who shortly emerged as considered one of their finest gamers and simply had a Selke Trophy-caliber second season in Chicago.
Kyle Davidson is outwardly hoping for the same coup with Ilya Mikheyev.
The Canucks are sending Mikheyev, the rights to pending unrestricted free agent Sam Lafferty and a 2027 second-round decide to Chicago for a 2027 fourth-round decide. The Athletic’s Chris Johnston reported that Mikheyev waived his modified no-trade clause to finish the deal. It’s a cap dump for Vancouver, pure and easy, and the Canucks are retaining 15 p.c of Mikheyev’s $4.75 million cap hit for 2 extra years. For Chicago, it’s taking a flier on a participant who might as soon as fly.
The 29-year-old Mikheyev is an intriguing reclamation challenge for the Blackhawks, who’ve each cap house and persistence to burn. As soon as one of many quickest skaters within the league and a powerful producer — 21 objectives in 53 video games in the course of the 2021-22 season and 13 objectives in 46 video games in 2022-23 — with robust defensive metrics, Mikheyev hasn’t been the identical since ACL surgical procedure reduce his season brief in 2023. He performed 78 video games this season, his first for the reason that surgical procedure, however had simply 11 objectives and 20 assists. Ten of these 11 objectives got here in his first 28 video games of the season, as his offense dried up over his remaining 50 video games. He didn’t have any factors in 11 playoff video games.
Per the NHL’s Edge monitoring system, Mikheyev was nonetheless a powerful skater, within the 69th percentile in high pace and seventieth percentile in pace bursts over 20 mph. However again in 2021-22, he was within the ninety fifth percentile in each classes.
“For me, guys coming off that surgical procedure don’t get again to their recreation till the second yr after their surgical procedure,” an Japanese Convention scout stated. “I might take the gamble if I acquired him in an under-value commerce.”
The Blackhawks had been the lowest-scoring crew within the league final season with 2.17 objectives per recreation, and basic supervisor Kyle Davidson vowed his crew could be extra aggressive this season. Chicago has vital curiosity in higher-end gamers similar to Jake Guentzel and Martin Necas, however these are considerably lengthy photographs. Mikheyev isn’t at their stage, and the Blackhawks envision him extra in a third-liner/penalty-killing sort function. However he might present some depth scoring, which Chicago sorely wants.
As for Lafferty, he carved out a pleasant function for himself in his two seasons in Chicago as a penalty-killing bottom-sixer earlier than being traded to Toronto on the 2023 deadline. The Blackhawks now have unique negotiating rights with Lafferty till free company opens on Monday. They hope to signal him and, paired with Mikheyev, considerably improve their backside six.
(Picture of Ilya Mikheyev: Bob Frid / USA Right now)
