Chicago Blackhawks: The Downside of the Marian Hossa Trade

Despite unloading a significant amount of cap space, the Chicago Blackhawks still lost a lot, in dealing Marian Hossa’s contract to the Arizona Coyotes

Due to a skin disorder, Marian Hossa was no longer fit to play in the NHL before the 2017-18 season. Obviously not wanting to pay for a player who can no longer play, the Chicago Blackhawks traded Hossa’s contract to the Arizona Coyotes in July.

Before last season, the Blackhawks were always one of the most terrifying teams to play against. Teams knew that when they played Chicago, they weren’t going to have an easy time.

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Last season, they looked less threatening than they have in almost a decade and missed the playoffs, thus ending the fear they would always bring to opposing teams. After this unsuccessful season, seeing that the old crew weren’t what they used to be, the Blackhawks were too willing to look for simple fixes.

When a team wants to regain its former glory, the first thing they have to do is shed themselves of obvious detractors. Hossa wasn’t a detractor himself, but his contract certainly was.

So, probably without looking deep enough into the situation, Chicago very hastily rid themselves of his contract in a deal that looks pretty decent on the surface.

Even without looking deeper into it, however, it’s obvious that something else was going on. Why would the Coyotes, a struggling team who are still early into a rebuild, want Hossa’s contract, without getting much in return? Well, it’s because Coyotes general manager John Chayka is clever and the return was actually pretty great. The Blackhawks got duped.

What happened?

So, let’s take a look at the trade. The Blackhawks traded Hossa’s contract, Vinnie Hinostroza, Jordan Oesterle, and a third-round pick, in exchange for Marcus Kruger, MacKenzie Entwistle, Jordan Maletta, Andrew Campbell, and a fifth-round pick.

It may not seem like it, but this was a brilliant trade on the Coyotes’ part. To start off with, Hinostroza isn’t particularly well-known throughout the NHL. As a center, he played 50 games last season, picking up 7 goals and 18 assists for 25 points.

This puts him on pace for 41 points in 82 games. So, a decent but seemingly far-from-spectacular player. Defenseman Jordan Oesterle also doesn’t seem great at face value, scoring only 15 points through 55 games last season.

The first key is that Arizona got rid of Kruger, which makes them significantly better. Kruger has never had a 30 point season and scored just six points in 48 games last season with Carolina.

Maletta is an undrafted prospect who may or may never see the NHL. MacKenzie Entwistle, despite the amazing Tolkien-esque name, is a 3rd round pick from 2017. Campbell only has 42 games of NHL experience, and probably want be returning all to often, if ever again.

Basically, in exchange for Hossa’s contract, Hinostroza and Oesterle, the Blackhawks received some potential AHL depth. But this isn’t a big deal. The Coyotes are, after all, taking on the contract of a non-player. Well, let’s take a look at Hinostroza and Oesterle.

Neither of them are elite point producers, but John Chayka took other things into account. For example, when only taking into consideration, players who played more than half the season, Hinostroza had the third best CorsiFor percentage on the Blackhawks, last season. He is behind only Jonathan Toews and and Brandon Saad.

Oesterle, although further behind, had the 9th best. In this case, this is just the tip of the iceberg. If the Blackhawks had taken the following into account, they almost certainly wouldn’t have made this trade.

If you haven’t noticed, this tool is really good to use, because it shows how a player affects their team, beyond point totals alone. Here is Jonathan Toews compared to Vinnie Hinostroza using this tool.

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This was no accident. John Chayka has dedicated his career to looking at hockey at a different angle. The fact that Hinostroza’s contributions are so close to Toews’, should be terrifying to Blackhawks fans.

If you’re convinced that this was just a coincidence, Oesterle should change your mind. Here he is, compared to Duncan Keith.

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These two don’t look impressive at face value. This is the mistake the Blackhawks made. When Oesterle and Hinostroza have similar impacts to two of your top players, in addition to being quite a bit younger, things get worrying.

It’s hard to think of anything else to say. The Blackhawks got moneyballed. They didn’t do their homework, and they lost two hidden gems. It’s still a good thing that they got rid of Hossa’s contract, but they could have done it without giving up Hinostroza and Oesterle.

Strange as it sounds, the Blackhawks are a far inferior team without these two, and it went right under their noses. This would make more sense if they were willingly going into a rebuild, but they’re not. They still have Toews, Kane, Saad, Keith, Seabrook and Crawford. This is not a rebuilding team.

In doing this, Chicago has significantly sped up Arizona’s rebuild, and jumbled up their team even more. Not having to pay for Hossa for 3 more seasons, was simply not worth it.

Charts via the comparison tool