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Kirby Dach\u2019s second return to Chicago didn\u2019t go nearly as well as his first.<\/p>\n
On Black Friday 2022, two months into his Canadiens tenure after being traded by the Blackhawks, Dach recorded a dramatic shootout winner and celebrated by taunting the United Center crowd. At the time, he had 17 points in his first 21 games in Montreal and looked poised to make the Hawks regret dealing him.<\/p>\n
This Friday, however, Dach \u2014 whose Canadiens tenure now looks less rosy \u2014 recorded an assist but otherwise made little impact in the Canadiens\u2019 4-2 loss to the Hawks. His younger brother Colton, making his NHL debut for the Hawks, was much more noticeable.<\/p>\n
Kirby Dach\u2019s unimpressive return to Chicago coincidentally comes at the same time as Hawks general manager Kyle Davidson, the man who traded him, faces his biggest wave of criticism so far from the Hawks\u2019 fan base.<\/p>\n
Firing Luke Richardson removed a shield in front of Davidson, and the Hawks\u2019 continued losing ways under interim coach Anders Sorensen have proven Davidson failed to improve this NHL roster to the degree he intended. For many understandably impatient fans, Davidson has replaced Richardson as the lightning rod for their frustrations.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, the success of Davidson\u2019s GM tenure will be determined by the success of the overall rebuild, not the success of this veteran placeholder-laden team. The success of the rebuild will be determined by how many of the countless prospects Davidson has drafted successfully develop into impactful NHL players, and that won\u2019t be known for some time yet.<\/p>\n
But enough time has<\/i> passed since Davidson\u2019s three earth-scorching trades in the first half of 2022 \u2014 which sent Brandon Hagel to the Lightning, Alex DeBrincat to the Senators and Dach to the Canadiens \u2014 that those moves can begin to be judged.<\/p>\n
And so far, the Dach trade seems to be panning out best from the Hawks\u2019 perspective. Here\u2019s a look back at all three:<\/p>\n
All three trades were made partly to replenish the Hawks\u2019 prospect pool and partly to make the 2022-23 roster awful enough to get the No. 1 pick and Connor Bedard. That latter motivation makes them each slightly trickier to analyze in a vacuum.<\/p>\n
The Hagel trade seemed most favorable initially. Even Hagel himself, a former Sabres sixth-round pick, was shocked the Hawks received two first-round picks in exchange for him.<\/p>\n
There was some uncertainty at the time whether his early NHL success was sustainable, but he has blossomed into a star since then \u2014 and has done so without losing his scrappy side.<\/p>\n
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He recorded 64 points with the Lightning in 2022-23, 75 points in 2023-24 and is on pace for 98 this season. He entered Saturday tied for 21st in the league in scoring, and he\u2019s only 26 years old. That would be nice to have alongside Bedard now, disregarding the flaw in that logic.<\/p>\n
The Hawks used the first-round picks on Oliver Moore and Sacha Boisvert (after a 2024 pick swap with the Islanders). They\u2019re two of the best forward prospects in the pipeline, but it\u2019ll still take years to find out how good each of them will be. The Hawks also got two mixed-bag seasons of Taylor Raddysh and two irrelevant seasons of Boris Katchouk.<\/p>\n
The DeBrincat trade worked out terribly for the Senators, who were forced to trade him at discounted value to his hometown Red Wings just one fruitless year later because he didn\u2019t want to sign long-term in Ottawa.<\/p>\n
On the ice, DeBrincat has been OK for both the Senators and Wings, recording 66 and 67 points the last two seasons and pacing toward 67 again this season, but he hasn\u2019t continued his early-20s ascension, either.<\/p>\n
The Hawks received the picks used to draft Kevin Korchinski, Paul Ludwinski and A.J. Spellacy in return. The haul was considered underwhelming at the time.<\/p>\n
Yet again, there\u2019s much left to be determined with those three prospects. If Korchinski ends up blossoming into a Shea Theodore-type dynamic offensive defenseman, the Hawks will have definitively won this trade, but that is the best-case scenario.<\/p>\n
The draft-floor Dach trade currently seems most favorable largely because of how ineffective its namesake has been in Montreal.<\/p>\n
Since that triumphant November 2022 game in Chicago, Dach has recorded only 36 points in 77 games, including only 13 in 38 this season. The former No. 3 overall pick, who will turn 24 later this month, hasn\u2019t propelled forward the Canadiens\u2019 rebuild nearly as much as they hoped he would.<\/p>\n
The ACL and MCL tears he suffered in the second game of last season \u2014 from a clean hit by ex-Hawks defenseman Jarred Tinordi \u2014 not only cost him lots of time but also seriously disrupted his career rhythm, just like the broken wrist he suffered in the 2021 World Junior Championships did during his Hawks tenure.<\/p>\n
Analytically, he has actually been one of the worst forwards in the NHL this season. The Canadiens have been outscored 26-12 during his five-on-five ice time, and his 43.6% scoring-chance ratio ranks second-to-last on the team.<\/p>\n
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The Hawks received the picks used to draft prospect forwards Frank Nazar and Gavin Hayes in return. The jury is still out on both of them, as it is with all other aforementioned prospects.<\/p>\n
Nazar\u2019s AHL dominance this fall established how high his ceiling is, but he\u2019s still adjusting to the NHL, tallying just one assist in the Hawks\u2019 last 10 games. He continues to show flashes of his speed, playmaking and nose for the net, and he possesses the perfect combination of humility and confidence personality-wise, so there are plenty of reasons for optimism.<\/p>\n
Hayes is a mid-tier forward prospect who had a quiet first half-season in Rockford and will now miss eight-to-12 weeks with a shoulder injury. Like Nazar, he\u2019s still just 20 years old.<\/p>\n
Davidson, during an interview on Sportsnet\u2019s 32 Thoughts podcast a week ago, said he roots for players he trades away to find success elsewhere, not letting the competitive, pragmatic business of hockey blind his appreciation for players as humans. He admitted he knew he would get publicly blasted for those 2022 trades, too \u2014 especially the DeBrincat one.<\/p>\n
And he also explained why he doesn\u2019t put stock into hindsight-aided trade analyses like these, whether they make him look smart or silly.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to understand that supposedly something bad could happen [where] you trade this player away and they crush it on the other team,\u201d Davidson said. \u201cThen everyone goes back and does a retrospective and [says], \u2018Oh my God, it was this, this and this for that, and look at how good this thing was that they traded away.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cThat happens. You have to understand that what you\u2019re doing has purpose, and what you\u2019re getting has value for you. You believe that piece you\u2019re receiving will make you better. That\u2019s what I focus on. I don\u2019t focus on \u2018What could happen?\u2019 because that has to be baked in, otherwise it\u2019s reckless. … There\u2019s risk in everything you do.\u201d<\/p>\n
That might be the wisest mindset for Davidson personally, but there\u2019s no question he will be nonetheless evaluated by others based on how well his trades (and his signings and selections) pan out. He had to have been curious how Kirby Dach would perform Friday, even though he wasn\u2019t in town to see it and apparently wouldn\u2019t have rooted against him.<\/p>\n
As more time passes, it will be both interesting and important to monitor the branches of these three trades.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As Hawks general manager Kyle Davidson faces his first substantial wave of criticism, now seems like a good time to analyze his 2022 trades that converted Kirby Dach, Alex DeBrincat and Brandon Hagel into a ton of draft picks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chicago-blackhawks"],"yoast_head":"\n