CrashingTheGoalie

by Ron Spence

The Blackhawks went on a rampage late in 2003 and early 2004. They were unloading salaries and veteran players and acquiring a bunch of draft picks. 

The 17 picks that they exercised appears to be a record for one team in one Entry Draft. 

The Blackhawks’ alloted picks are in solid red.

courtesy of hockeydb.com

I was able to compare some of the trades from the NHLTradeHistory website with the draft list above.

I have printed these trades in red on both the draft graft and the trade history narrative.

Where a draft pick was traded to another team, I noted those trades in blue. Thus, the John Klemm trade has writing in both red and blue. 

The trades and drafts that I couldn’t find documentation for remain in black print:

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Chicago traded Lyle Odelein to Dallas for Sami Helenius and Dallas’s 7th round choice – Troy Brouwer - in the 2004 Entry Draft.

Chicago traded Phil Housley to Toronto for Toronto’s 9th round choice  - Chris Porter – in the 2003 Entry Draft and Toronto’s 4th round choice (Karel Hromas) in 2004.

Chicago traded Peter White to Philly for futures.

Colorado acquired center Andrei Nikolishin from Chicago for the Av’s 4th round choice (Mitch Maunu) in the 2004 Entry Draft.

Boris Mironov was traded to NY for the Rangers’ 4th round choice (later traded to Dallas)

Chicago traded Jon Klemm and (a 4th round pick in 2004) to Dallas for Stephane Robidas and a 2nd round pick in 2004.

Chicago traded Steve Sullivan to Nashville for a 2nd round pick in 2004 (Ryan Garlock) and a 2nd round pick in 2005 (Michael Blunden).

Chicago traded Sergei Berezin to Washington for a 4th round pick in 2004 - later traded to Philadelphia - in 2004 Entry Draft.

Chicago traded Alexei Zhamnov and (a 4th round pick in 2004) to Philly for Jim Vandermeer, Colin Fraser and a 2nd round pick in 2004 (from Kings through Flyers, Bryan Bickell).

Chicago traded Ville Niemenen to Calgary for Jason Morgan and Calgary’s 6th round choice (Joseph Fallon) in the 2005 Entry Draft.

Chicago traded Nathan Dempsey to Los Angeles for a 4th round pick in 2005 (Nathan Davis) and futures.

Chicago traded Alexander Karpovstev to the Islanders for New York’s 4th round choice – Niklas Hjalmarsson – in the 2005 Entry Draft.

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Chicago’s strategy was sound. They traded for higher picks – 4th rounders, for example – and then traded these selections plus a player for a 2nd rounder. 

Knowing that their owner – at the time – was a tightwad, I can see that their limited scouting focused on WHL, OHL  and a few Czech and Finnish players. 

Unfortunately, as you can see from the spreadsheet immediately above, there were a lot of good players available from the QMJHL, Sweden (SEL), Russia and American colleges.

So, Chicago had four second round picks, and their own selection – 32nd overall – has become an established NHL player.

The rest haven’t really panned out, although their 7 round pick – Troy Brouwer – whose rights they acquired from Dallas for Lyle Odelein – has played well.

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The moral of the story is that you can have the best strategy in the world, but if you don’t have the information to support it, it’s for naught.