One of the more compelling storylines heading into the NHL’s trade deadline concerns the Chicago Blackhawks and marquee forwards Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane.
Early in a deep and likely painful rebuild, the Blackhawks could be faced with moving one or both faces of the franchise – two future Hall of Fame forwards with championship rings who would appeal to any contending team.
But a Kane or Toews trade is extremely nuanced for multiple reasons. The first and obvious one is the liability both players pose against the salary cap. In even a high-growth cap environment, bringing $10.5 million in cap hits onto the books in the middle of the year is a challenge. It’s even more difficult in today’s slow-growth era. Moreover, Kane and Toews both have no-movement clauses, which means they must be amenable to any landing spot.
Here’s another challenge: Chicago is expecting a meaningful return in any Toews or Kane trade, considering their pedigree. But they are both 34, on expiring deals, and have seen their production wane considerably in recent years. They are also strikingly different players – Kane is an elite playmaker and scorer whose defensive play has always left something to be desired, whereas Toews has built a reputation as a more polished two-way forward.
What teams need to evaluate is how much the degradation in performance from Kane and Toews is the result of the team they’re playing for and the weapons around them, versus how much their play is starting to erode. Let’s take a look at a few parameters to show how their dominance has waned in a particularly noticeable fashion over the past few years.
To start, let’s look at individual offensive production (all situations):
There are two very different stories here. Kane has been able to maintain his scoring dominance – his production in the 2022-23 season has slowed a bit, but that’s an impressively flat (and predictable) trendline. Moreover, I think it marries up with what we see watching these games. When Kane has the puck and time and space to work with, he’s very dangerous. True yesterday, true today, and probably true tomorrow.
Toews, meanwhile, has started to see a sharp downward turn in his scoring rate. Teams aren’t trading for Toews for the primary reason of him scoring goals, but this is a noticeable breakdown that started as Toews entered his 30s and has sustained itself for about five seasons now.
Next, let’s look at trended expected goal rates (goaltender neutral), which is an important adjustment for a Chicago team that’s rebuilding everywhere right now. This is where it gets alarming:
Toews isn’t the defensive wizard he once was, and that’s been true for about five seasons now, with a noticeably bad slide again this season. Kane, meanwhile, would be outshot and outchanced on some of his best days in his prime, combating that territorial disadvantage with his ability to seemingly score at will. But the overarching point here is that neither player is driving advantage play at even strength right now. Both are getting picked apart defensively.
One notable point here, especially with this year’s significant downturn, is that Kane and Toews haven’t played much with each other. Toews has been most commonly playing with Taylor Raddysh and Philipp Kurashev, with defensemen Connor Murphy and Jack Johnson behind his line. Kane has stayed with more skilled players – Max Domi and Andreas Athanasiou up top, with Jake McCabe and Seth Jones behind him. Teasing out the impacts of teammate quality – in particular for Toews, who really isn’t working with much – on each player’s overall production will be critical for any interested buyer.
But ultimately, this is why we care about the drying up in scoring for Toews, the breakdown in territorial advantage for Toews, and the outright defensive capitulation from Kane. It’s creating meaningful goal disadvantages for the Blackhawks, and that should not be understated. Part of the reason Chicago is terrible, and has been terrible for a few years now, is because their top players aren’t performing:
This is blinking red lights buyer beware. Toews and Kane as pure rentals are intriguing options in large part because (a) we have seen many years of high production in prior years; and (b) there is a good-faith argument their more recent play has been impeded by the quality of players around them.
But any team considering a deal must not just consider how much they are willing to part with for players who aren’t outperforming their opponents anymore. Moreover, any team considering an extension as part of a deadline trade must consider the structure of any contract in the event the degradation is real.
Data via Natural Stat Trick, NHL.com, Evolving Hockey, Hockey Reference