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Blackhawks trade Patrick Sharp to Dallas Stars

Written By Mark Lazerus Posted: 07/10/2015, 08:16pm

The core is no more.

The Blackhawks traded Patrick Sharp — a three-time champion, an alternate captain, and one of the most prolific scorers in team history — to the Dallas Stars on Friday night, along with touted defenseman prospect Stephen Johns, for offensive-minded defenseman Trevor Daley and agitating forward Ryan Garbutt.

It was a long expected move, with the Hawks up against the salary cap and needing to shed payroll. Sharp has two years left on his current contract, which carries a $5.9-million cap hit. Free agent Johnny Oduya has been waiting for the Hawks to free up cap space and expects to make his decision next week, but Daley fills Oduya’s spot on the left side, and even with the Stars eating half of Garbutt’s $1.8-million cap hit, the move only saves the Hawks $2.6 million. Daley, 31, who had a career-high 16 goals last season, has a $3.3 million cap hit, which the Hawks now assume. And Johns was expected to play in the NHL this season. The Hawks also have been trying to trade Bryan Bickell, but finding a taker for his $4-million salary has been difficult.

Hawks general manager Stan Bowman tried to frame the Sharp deal as “more of an old-fashioned hockey trade.”

“We did clear some cap space in the process, which is positive,” Bowman said. “Sort of a dual-purpose move. Will we do other things? I guess it’s possible. … We’re getting closer to a point where we can say this is officially our team. But we’re not there yet.”

Sharp is the first star member of the Hawks’ vaunted core, the seven players who’ve won three Stanley Cups, to be dealt away. But he’s hardly the first champion to become a salary-cap casualty. In the summer of 2010, Dustin Byfuglien, Andrew Ladd and Antti Niemi were among the many players the Hawks couldn’t keep. In 2013, two-time champ Dave Bolland was dealt away.

“This team’s been through that before, with winning Stanley Cups and salary-cap issues,” Sharp said during the Stanley Cup Final.

But just because it was inevitable, doesn’t mean it’s not jarring. Sharp, 33, has 249 goals and 277 assists in his career, all but 10 of those goals coming with the Hawks after the Philadelphia Flyers sent him to Chicago in December of 2005 after three seasons spent mostly in the American Hockey League. The versatile winger appropriately known as “Shooter” is 11th on the Hawks’ all-time goals list, and 15th on the all-time points list.

Just last season, Sharp was the Hawks’ leading scorer, with 34 goals and 44 assists in a career year. And he was an integral part of all three Cup runs, scoring 11 goals in the 2010 playoffs, 10 in the 2013 playoffs, and five in the most recent run — adapting to more of a defensive role while helping Antoine Vermette and Teuvo Teravainen break out.

This past season was by far his toughest. He had just 16 goals and 27 assists in 68 games as he dealt with off-ice drama, rumors about his personal life joining the year-long rumors about his future with the Hawks.

“I blocked a lot of things out this year,” he said two days after winning the Cup. “I thought it was a pretty unfair year, some of the stuff I was hearing about myself and my teammates. But that’s the kind of group of guys we have. We stick together. We got it done and we got through it.”

Sharp always knew how lucky he was. Every time he stood at the blue line as 22,000 people roared through the national anthem, every time he was recognized on the streets of Chicago, all three times he looked out at a sea of delirious red-clad Hawks fans celebrating a Stanley Cup, Sharp remembered the bad old days.

He remembered playing in front of a few thousand fans at the cavernous United Center for the first couple of years. He remembered missing the playoffs in his first three seasons. And he remembered all the blood and sweat that went into turning it all around.

Every Hawks player calls the franchise the best in the league. But perhaps nobody was prouder of what the Hawks accomplished than Sharp. On the ice, they gave him a chance and a major role, and he embraced it. Off the ice, they made him a superstar, a face of the franchise, a liaison to the city, and he embraced that, too.

“I’m just proud to be a Chicago Blackhawk,” he said earlier this season. “I’ve known since I came to Chicago how lucky I was to be a part of this city and this organization.”

Email: mlazerus@suntimes.com
Twitter: @marklazerus

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