Sometimes its worth holding onto certain players as they are bound to break out after moving on to another team. This is what the Blackhawks have experienced a fair bit over the past 15 years.

The Chicago Blackhawks have had a ton of very good players either start with or come through their team. Unfortunately for Chicago, many of these players broke out to a higher level after they moved on to another club.

Whether the breakout came the following season or after some time had passed, it would have been interesting to see each of these players still on the Blackhawks when they took off. Let's dive into these nine ex-Blackhawks players who broke out after being traded.

Artemi Panarin

Artemi Panarin has had a very successful career and is one of the top players in the NHL at age 32. This level of talent has always been with him and the Blackhawks didn't decide to keep him around to see it to fruition.

Panarin started his NHL career at 24 years old after he signed as a free agent with the Blackhawks in May 2015. He won the Calder Trophy in 2015-16 over Connor McDavid and then had an impressive sophomore season. After just two seasons where he was a very skilled top-six winger and scored 61 goals and 151 points, he was traded to the Columbus Blue Jackets after Chicago had lost in the first round of the playoffs in both seasons.

Panarin, now the New York Rangers' MVP, finished both of his first two seasons just under a point-per-game and has not been under ever since. He's hit 90 points in four seasons and wrapped up the 2023-24 with 120 points.

Teuvo Teravainen

Teuvo Teravainen has had a successful career in the NHL spanning 10 seasons. He was drafted in the first round of the 2012 by Chicago and played two seasons on the team before being traded to the Carolina Hurricanes in June 2016 at age 21.

Teravainen won the Stanley Cup as a rookie in 2015. After a solid second season, the Blackhawks dealt him and got a second-round pick and a third-round pick in return.

Teravainen was heading upward as he produced 13 goals and 35 points in his second season with the Blackhawks. Then he recorded 20-plus goals in four seasons, 60-plus points in three seasons, and one 76-point season in Carolina.

Teravainen, now 29, becomes a UFA after this season.

Phillip Danault

Phillip Danault didn't last long in Chicago after being drafted in the first round in 2011. He played just 32 games (one goal and five points) for the Blackhawks before being traded to the Montréal Canadiens. He was dealt in his rookie season at age 22 and broke out the following season, 2016-17,

It wasn't until 2018-19 (three years after the trade) where Danault finally got the recognition he deserved for his two-way play, finishing in the top-eight in Selke Trophy voting for four consecutive years. These seasons came across his time in Montréal and with the Los Angeles Kings. Last season he didn't finish high in the voting for the Selke, but did earn votes.

Danault is a top-six centerman and has been a very reliable player on the two teams he's played for since the Blackhawks moved him way too early. Chicago dealt Danault and the draft pick that got the Canadiens Alexander Romanov in exchange for forwards Tomas Fleischmann and Dale Weise.

Gustav Forsling

Before Gustav Forsling played a game in the NHL or even signed an entry-level contract, the Blackhawks acquired the defenseman from the Vancouver Canucks and shipped Adam Clendening back. This trade was completed in January 2015, just seven months after Vancouver drafted Forsling in the fifth round.

The Blackhawks could never find the right spot for Forsling in the lineup as he served as a sixth or seventh defenseman for three seasons. He was traded to the Carolina Hurricanes with goalie Anton Forsberg for D-man Calvin de Haan and center Aleksi Saarela in June 2019. 

Forsling eventually got picked up on waivers by the Florida Panthers in January 2021 after playing the entire 2019-20 season in the AHL.

Forsling started to break out immediately after getting a shot in Florida where his ice time per game jumped nearly three minutes from his last season in Chicago. The Blackhawks gave up on a 23-year-old defenseman, only to see him become one of the most reliable defensemen in the NHL in 2021-22 at age 25 

Forsling just finished at an NHL-best plus-56 on the season in 2023-24. He had 10 goals and 39 points for the Panthers, skating an average of 22:09 per game.

Nick Leddy

The Blackhawks acquired Nick Leddy after he was drafted in the first round in 2009 by Minnesota. He came to Chicago from the Wild in a February 2010 trade that shipped off defenseman Cam Barker.

Leddy only spent his first four seasons in the NHL in Chicago, but he started as a 19-year-old defenseman which was still much more rare. In 2013-14, his final season with the Blackhawks, he scored seven goals and recorded 31 points. He was only 22 years old and it was a clear sign he was going to turn into a very talented player on the back-end.

That is exactly what happened as Leddy earned Norris Trophy votes the following season after being traded to the New York Islanders. Even though he hasn't been as advertised for the St. Louis Blues as he's gotten older, the mobile D-man put together three 10-plus goal seasons and three 40-plus point seasons in the following four seasons after the trade from Chicago.

Brandon Hagel

Forward Brandon Hagel was the most recent of these talented young players to be moved too soon. Despite the return that included Oliver Moore and a 2024 first-round pick, Hagel was just breaking out the season the Blackhawks traded him to the Tampa Bay Lightning.

The scrappy Hagel scored 21 goals and 37 points in 55 games in 2021-22 before being dealt to the Lightning. It took him until the following season to adjust and he has been very good in the top-six for Tampa Bay, recording 56 goals and 139 points in 166 games.

The Blackhawks traded Hagel while he was just 23 years old and the former sixth-round pick is a true top line winger now, able to score and produce. He had 65 even-strength points this season.

Andrew Ladd

Andrew Ladd played for the Blackhawks near the start of his NHL career for just over two seasons, recording 49 points and 38 points. While those point totals are good for a young player that was 23 and 24 years old, he took his offensive game to the next level after being traded by the Blackhawks right after they won the Stanley Cup in 2010.

To that point in Ladd's career, it was a slow progression to improve, but he jumped up 12 goals and 21 points the following season with the Atlanta Thrashers/Winnipeg Jets organization. This was the start of six 20+ goal seasons in his career, one 62 point season, and a near point-per-game season at age 27.

The Blackhawks got a good taste of what they would have in Ladd, but still traded him in exchange for Ivan Vishnevskiy and a second-round pick as they faced a salary-cap squeeze. The Blackhawks missed the entire prime of his career and acquired him back from the Jets six years later.

Ryan Hartman

Ryan Hartman, drafted in the first round of the 2013 draft, was just a bottom-six player for the Blackhawks. The February 2018 trade that sent him to the Nashville Predators for a 2018 first-round draft pick worked out for Chicago, as it resulted in Philipp Kurashev. Still, Hartman broke out in a big way four years later for the Minnesota Wild.

Though the breakout was somewhat overhyped because of one season, Hartman has had the three best years of his career over the past three seasons.

Hartman scored 19 goals and 31 points in his rookie season, but his breakout was at 27 years old where he had 34 goals and 65 points. The Blackhawks would definitely make the trade to move Hartman again, but he did well after Chicago traded him.

Darren Raddysh

It took some time for Darren Raddysh to find his game and break out after the Blackhawks unloaded him.

Raddysh, an undrafted defenseman, initially signed to his first contract with the Blackhawks. Chicago traded him to the New York Rangers in 2019, but he didn't play in a game in the NHL until 2021-22 (with the Lightning), and didn't break out until last season at age 27.

There became more and more opportunity on Tampa Bay this season as cap space was limited and Mikhail Sergachev was also injured for a lot of the season. Raddysh took full advantage with 33 points and averaged 19:06 of ice time.

There's a chance that some of these players would have never broken out if they had stayed on the Blackhawks as the opportunity wasn't there, but Chicago has also moved on from a lot of great talent over the last decade and a half at the same time. 

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