The Blackhawks Mishandled the Ilya Mikheyev Situation

Chicago Blackhawks general manager (GM) Kyle Davidson has made a mess of one of the few free agents the Blackhawks have on the table this summer, and the mismanagement has gone back all the way to this past trade deadline.

Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman and a few others reported a little bit ago that the Blackhawks have made Ilya Mikheyev’s signing rights available for trade.

That report was incredibly odd to me because you don’t typically see signing rights to unrestricted free agents (UFAs) being traded. Typically, the point is so that the team acquiring the player can offer them an extra year that they couldn’t get on the open market from teams that don’t own their rights.

Teams used to be able to give their own free agents eight-year deals, while teams on the open market could only offer seven-year deals. Now the rules have changed, and both terms have been reduced by a year.

Another thought process behind trading for a UFA’s signing rights is that it gives you the ability to negotiate a deal with them before they have a chance to speak with other teams in free agency. We saw the Toronto Maple Leafs make a deal with the Dallas Stars on June 29, 2024, for the rights to Chris Tanev.

That deal was just a 2026 seventh-round pick and Max Ellis, who’s never played an NHL game and is currently in the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL).

The reason I bring that trade up is to give everyone an understanding of what rights are worth, and if a team is making a trade for Mikheyev, it wouldn’t be because they want to give him a seven-year deal. It would be to discuss a contract before free agency.

Davidson’s Mismanagement

Now that I’ve laid out what they could get for Mikheyev’s rights and why a team would trade for them, I’m going to get into how badly Davidson butchered this situation.

Mikheyev was a player that I outlined could be moved at this past trade deadline in an article just before the deadline. Eventually, I rethought it and wrote another article saying the Blackhawks should hold onto him. The problem with that is I figured getting a deal done with Mikheyev would be a simple move because the fit has been so good.

With the contract discussions not really going anywhere during the season and it being even worse now, Davidson missed out on an opportunity to get serious assets for a veteran on an expiring deal.

Davidson still had a great trade deadline, moving on from Connor Murphy, Jason Dickinson, Colton Dach and Nick Foligno, but now we’re in a situation where Mikheyev will walk for very little to no assets.

Mikheyev was also a big part of the team this past season. Head coach Jeff Blashill played him in all situations, and he was fantastic defensively on a young team, full of forwards whose weakness is being defensively responsible. Mikheyev also posted a career high in points with 36 in the 77 games he played this season.

That’s going to be a tough loss for the team on the ice, but Davidson and the Blackhawks also caused headaches for themselves with the league.

After the Blackhawks made it known that Mikheyev was available for trade, Friedman reported the NHL was very unhappy with how the Blackhawks were going about shopping his rights.

This led to the league putting out a league-wide memo warning teams about tampering. The memo said that fines could be up to $5 million if the league finds a team guilty of tampering.

I like it when teams push the rules and try to gain advantages, but this looks incredibly sloppy from Davidson. They’re not getting assets for Mikheyev; it looks like contract discussions haven’t gone great, and now the league is keeping an eye on the Blackhawks.

In a summer where Chicago is trying to lock up the face of its franchise in Connor Bedard, the front office made a mess of asset management and has created a headache for itself because of an unforced error.