Analyzing Blackhawks' trades of Kirby Dach, Alex DeBrincat, Brandon Hagel three years later
Kirby Dach's second return to Chicago didn't go nearly as well as his first.
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.
This Friday, however, Dach — whose Canadiens tenure now looks less rosy — recorded an assist but otherwise made little impact in the Canadiens' 4-2 loss to the Hawks. His younger brother Colton, making his NHL debut for the Hawks, was much more noticeable.
Kirby Dach's 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' fan base.
Firing Luke Richardson removed a shield in front of Davidson, and the Hawks' 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.
Ultimately, the success of Davidson's 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't be known for some time yet.
But enough time has passed since Davidson's three earth-scorching trades in the first half of 2022 — which sent Brandon Hagel to the Lightning, Alex DeBrincat to the Senators and Dach to the Canadiens — that those moves can begin to be judged.
And so far, the Dach trade seems to be panning out best from the Hawks' perspective. Here's a look back at all three:
Hagel trade
All three trades were made partly to replenish the Hawks' 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.
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.
There was some uncertainty at the time whether his early NHL success was sustainable, but he has blossomed into a star since then — and has done so without losing his scrappy side.
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's only 26 years old. That would be nice to have alongside Bedard now, disregarding the flaw in that logic.
The Hawks used the first-round picks on Oliver Moore and Sacha Boisvert (after a 2024 pick swap with the Islanders). They're two of the best forward prospects in the pipeline, but it'll 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.
DeBrincat trade
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't want to sign long-term in Ottawa.
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't continued his early-20s ascension, either.
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.
Yet again, there's 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.
Dach trade
The draft-floor Dach trade currently seems most favorable largely because of how ineffective its namesake has been in Montreal.
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't propelled forward the Canadiens' rebuild nearly as much as they hoped he would.
The ACL and MCL tears he suffered in the second game of last season — from a clean hit by ex-Hawks defenseman Jarred Tinordi — 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.
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.
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.
Nazar's AHL dominance this fall established how high his ceiling is, but he's still adjusting to the NHL, tallying just one assist in the Hawks' 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.
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's still just 20 years old.
What’s the point?
Davidson, during an interview on Sportsnet's 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 — especially the DeBrincat one.
And he also explained why he doesn't put stock into hindsight-aided trade analyses like these, whether they make him look smart or silly.
"You have to understand that supposedly something bad could happen [where] you trade this player away and they crush it on the other team," Davidson said. "Then everyone goes back and does a retrospective and [says], 'Oh my God, it was this, this and this for that, and look at how good this thing was that they traded away.'
"That happens. You have to understand that what you're doing has purpose, and what you're getting has value for you. You believe that piece you're receiving will make you better. That's what I focus on. I don't focus on 'What could happen?' because that has to be baked in, otherwise it's reckless. ... There's risk in everything you do."
That might be the wisest mindset for Davidson personally, but there's 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't in town to see it and apparently wouldn't have rooted against him.
As more time passes, it will be both interesting and important to monitor the branches of these three trades.