A shopping list for next season was part of Mike Smith’s carry-on luggage when the Blackhawks’ general manager boarded the plane Tuesday afternoon, bound for Sunrise, Fla., and this weekend’s NHL amateur draft.
“Generally speaking, the draft is long term,” Smith said. “Sometimes you use the draft to improve your team today by trading a pick for a player.
“Right now we have seven–soon to become eight–picks in the top four rounds. That gives us the flexibility of trying to make a trade or two by using players and draft picks as part of the deal.”
Smith has two selections in the first round (9 and 29 overall), one in the second (59 overall), two in the third (73 and 88 overall) and two in the fourth (106 and 115 overall).
Smith’s words “soon to become eight” suggest that a deal is almost done. Defenseman Stephane Quintal is the most likely player to be bartered, and a fourth-round draft pick is what Smith is expected to receive in return.
For Smith, the most pressing priority is not the draft but the here and now. He is out to end the Hawks’ four-year playoff drought.
“We need to be more physical,” he said. “We’d like at least one physical defenseman. We still need to do what I wasn’t able to do last year–upgrade our mid-level forwards. Alex Zhamnov got hurt and Chris Herperger, who started the year in the minors, became our first-line center.
“We need depth down the middle–one or possibly two wingers capable of scoring 15-20 goals and playing a physical game.
“To improve our team we need to do at least two things. One is to make a trade or two and the other is to sign a couple of free agents.
“There will be trades this week. How significant and how many I’m not sure.”
Although the consensus is that the Hawks had an excellent draft last summer, Smith failed in his attempt to find impact players in the free-agent market. His two acquisitions–winger Valeri Zelepukin and backup goalie Robbie Tallas–both spent most of the second half of the season in the minors, where they ended the year.
Teams can’t talk about free agents they are interested in until July 1 when contracts expire. But Smith reportedly is eyeing Jeremy Roenick, the ex-Hawk who went to Phoenix in the 1996 deal that brought Zhamnov to Chicago; Toronto’s Yanic Perrault, for whom Smith traded when he was the Maple Leafs’ assistant GM; and Buffalo’s Michael Peca, a holdout for all of last season.
There’s no gag order for the draft, but Smith declined to identify the players his scouts have targeted.
“I think it’s almost unanimous throughout the league that Ilya Kovalchuk [a left wing from Spartak in Russia] is the No. 1 pick overall,” he said. “He will be gone when we draft ninth. We’re hoping someone high on our list still will be there.
“Last year’s draft turned out quite well for us. We have quite a bit of depth at forward from that draft. This year we certainly would like to add a top defenseman in one of the early rounds.
“We’ll also be looking at goaltenders in the early rounds. Defense and goaltending overall have a little more priority than the forwards.
“There is a consensus that there are players in this draft who’ll definitely be playing in the league next year, but No. 9 is probably too far down. We’d be very surprised to get someone who can help us next year.”
When Smith returns from the draft, he’ll resume negotiations with the agents of the Hawks who’ll become free agents July 1.
Bob Probert will be an unrestricted free agent and fellow forwards Zhamnov, Eric Daze, Jean-Yves Leroux and Josef Marha will be restricted free agents along with defensemen Jaroslav Spacek and Jamie Allison and goalie Jocelyn Thibault.
