The Chicago Blackhawks are at the point where they are trying to emerge from their rebuild. They are no longer trying to ship out good players to get draft picks and unproven prospects.
They will still move on from expiring assets so that they can add for the future, but they are no longer interested in moving on from productive players with term left to increase their chances of being a lottery team.
Seth Jones may be the one exception. If they can move on from him to get rid of his large cap hit, they will. He has five years left $9.5 million. He is still a good defenseman but you need to be better than good with that cap hit.
Chicago will almost certainly have to retain on him if they can move his deal. An elite team would love to add a minute-munching defenseman with some offensive punch for under $5 million.
Jones has a no-movement clause on his contract which means that he cannot be traded, waived, or sent to the minors without his approval. He has full control of where he goes if he is going to be traded.
Earlier this week, Jones confirmed through Ben Pope of the Chicago Sun-Times that he would welcome being traded now. He wants to play for a winner.
If Jones works with the Hawks and gets himself traded to another team, he'd be helping them out in a lot of ways. For one, even if Chicago retains on his contract money, they'd be gaining a lot of unexpected cap space.
With the salary cap going up a lot over the next three years, even more space can help them continue building a good roster. They also have extensions coming up for young stars like Connor Bedard and Alex Vlasic amongst others.
There would also, without Jones in the lineup, be an extra spot to play a young defenseman in the organization. We've seen Alex Vlasic carve out a full-time role already and more have played sparingly throughout the year.
Giving guys like Louis Crevier, Ethan Del Mastro, Nolan Allan, Kevin Korchinski, and others more ice would be smart from a development perspective. There is a lot of young talent at the position in the organization.
When Jones is on the roster, he is going to play and have the most minutes. If he leaves, that will open up so many possibilities.
You'd also be doing right by the player. Seth Jones came to the organization when it was dealing with terrible turmoil off the ice, they didn't win one of their first ten games with him in the lineup, they traded tons of good players away, and have had four coaches.
Jones never complained or said anything negative about the team. Now, he wants to move on to a winning franchise after getting nothing he was promised in Chicago. It makes sense from his perspective.
Everyone involved which would be Jones, the Blackhawks, and the team acquiring him would benefit from a trade. It sounds like it will eventually happen so they might as well do it ahead of the March 7th deadline.
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