Reports started swirling Wednesday evening and, later that night, the Blackhawks first trade of the 2024 offseason became official.
In a cost-saving move for the Vancouver Canucks, Chicago acquired forwards Ilya Mikheyev and Sam Lafferty along with a 2027 second-round pick in exchange for a 2027 fourth-round pick.
Vancouver will be retaining 15 percent of Mikheyev’s salary per the terms of the deal. He’s signed for two more seasons at a salary cap hit of $4.75 million annually, with only $4.0375 million of that making it to Chicago’s books.
Lafferty is very much a known commodity around these parts, having spent two seasons in Chicago earlier this decade. He’s currently an unrestricted free agent, although the Blackhawks now have exclusive negotiating rights prior to free agency opening. Should he sign, he’ll slot in on the fourth line and could also be used on the penalty kill, something he did much more with Chicago than he did in Toronto or Vancouver.
Mikheyev is the more intriguing part of this deal. He’ll be 30 in October, so it doesn’t seem like he should be considered any long-term piece of the puzzle here — but the short-term offers some possibilities. He had 32 points (21 G, 11 A) in 53 games during the 2021-22 season with the Toronto Maple Leafs and parlayed that into a 4-year, $19 million contract with the Canucks back in the summer of 2022.
He had 28 points (13 G, 15 A) in 46 games during 2022-23, a 50-point pace over an 82-game season. But that season was ended in late January by a torn ACL. He skated 78 games last season with Vancouver, but his production declined: just 31 points (11 G, 20 A). Mikheyev’s ice time also dropped to 14:16 last season when he was up at 16:55 in 2022-23.
The primary thing to know about Mikheyev is that he can fly:
A serious knee injury can obviously affect that and perhaps that explains why Mikheyev struggled last season. Team tactics may have also been a problem here, as noted on Twitter by @JFreshHockey, who pointed out that Mikheyev went from a run-and-gun Toronto team to the less frenetic pace played by Vancouver:
Mikheyev was especially good on the forecheck with Toronto back in 2021-22, as indicated by the microstats data from the All Three Zones project. Check out the forechecking numbers way down at the bottom of this player card:
Not as much to like about his player card from the prior season, though:
Still, it seems like there’s an NHL-level player here, which remains something that the Blackhawks roster is woefully lacking — particularly at forward. Expecting him to suddenly be a top-six fixture is likely too optimistic of a thought, but he could certainly be a worthwhile player at the NHL level if he can rediscover the form he had back in Toronto.
For comparison’s sake, think of how much better former Blackhawks defenseman Jake McCabe looked during his second season in Chicago, which was also his second season coming off of ACL surgery.
The move may help bail Vancouver out of some salary-cap constraints, but it has potential to reap rewards in Chicago, too. The additional second-round pick provides another piece of draft capital for Kyle Davidson to use in future trades, and there’s also the possibility that Mikheyev helps the on-ice product for the next season or two and yields a solid return at one of the upcoming trade deadlines. Help is probably the operative word here, because Mikheyev alone — even at his peak — is nowhere near enough to plug the Titanic-sized hole Chicago’s lineup has at forward. More pieces will be necessary if this team wants to take the step forward that Davidson referenced during his exit interviews back in April.
And if Mikheyeve doesn’t work out, then he walks in free agency after the 2025-26 season, moving his salary off the Blackhawks’ books forever. There’s minimal risk of long-term damage here.
Not like this trade is going to put the Hawks within anywhere near the salary cap, but here are some updates figures from CapFriendly following the move: