Why Andre Burakovsky is a worthy bet for the Blackhawks 

The Chicago Blackhawks made a move last week by bringing in winger Andre Burakovsky from the Seattle Kraken in exchange for Joe Veleno, whom they had previously acquired at the deadline from the Detroit Red Wings for Petr Mrazek. Burakovsky has underperformed the past couple seasons, and is now 30 years old, but the Blackhawks are hoping that maybe they can get some of the guy that had 74 goals and 189 points in 240 games from 2019 to 2023 back to help their forward depth

Tyler Yaremchuk and Frank Seravalli talked about the move, and how Chicago is betting on the upside of Burakovsky, on Daily Faceoff Live.

Tyler Yaremchuk: For Chicago, I guess they’re maybe sitting there going “hey, let’s try to add a little bit of a scoring touch to this top six and give Connor Bedard a few more guys who can handle the puck.”

Frank Seravalli: Yeah, so this is just a bet on upside for the Hawks. And I think you actually have to rewind a bit and think about the position that they were in for last season’s trade deadline. They had an extra goalie and Peter Mrazek, they already told him, “Look, you’re not part of the future here. We’ve got Spencer Knight and Arvid Soderblom. You’re not even going to be practicing with our team.” They moved him to Detroit somehow, and he had another year left on his deal, this upcoming season, in exchange for Veleno.

Veleno didn’t really work out. He was much more of a fourth line center with limited productivity. They were actually thinking about buying him out as an under-26 guy. So they basically in the end flipped an extra goalie in Peter Mrazek for a chance that two-time Stanley Cup champion Andre Burakovsky rebounds and could be a piece that they play in their top six.

Is it a guarantee? No. Did he struggle in Seattle? Yes. But [he has] higher-end upside, way more so than Veleno, and definitely more useful than Mrazek. So they can put him in a position where maybe he rejuvenates his game a bit, and maybe the Hawks are the beneficiary of it. And in the end, it doesn’t really matter either way, because they’ve got tons of cap space that they’re never going to spend, that this becomes a worthy bet to make.

Tyler Yaremchuk: I get where you’re coming from in that sense as well. I mean, Burakovsky, you have him for the last two years of his deal, but maybe by the middle point of that second season, you’re out the playoffs, you keep half, you end up getting more than maybe what you would have gotten just by dangling Joe Veleno, so it is a worthy bet indeed.

You can watch the full episode here…