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The 2019 NHL trade deadline was rather slow; boring to be exact! From watching the TSN panel miss putts on live TV to playing the waiting game on Mark Stone, there was zero action from the Blackhawks.

I'm not shocked nor am I mad. Stan Bowman has made some solid moves this year in-season already with the largest and most successful coming on November 25th, 2018 which saw him send Nick Schmaltz to Arizona for Dylan Strome and Brendan Perlini.

Stan wasn't just going to make a trade just to make a trade; this was evident from his comments:

#Blackhawks GM Stan Bowman addresses the media now, after the #NHLTradeDeadline. https://t.co/MDHT2Y2ROB

— Blackhawks Talk (@NBCSBlackhawks) February 25, 2019

He loves the progress and I like that he is thinking about the long-term plan. I just really hope there is a lot more urgency in the summer when adding and tweaking this team. Don't give me another summer of Ward, Manning, Kunitz and Davidson.

--

What happened around the rest of the league today? Well, Columbus is going for it, Mark Stone goes to Sin City and overall it was a boring deadline day.

Here is the trade summary for the 8 Western Conference teams currently in playoff positions.

C1. Winnipeg - K.Hayes, M.Hendricks, N.Beaulieu
C2. Nashville - W.Simmonds, M.Granlund
C3. St. Louis - J.Kyrou, M.Del Zotto
P1. Calgary - O.Fontenberg
P2. San Jose - G. Nyquist
P3. Vegas - M.Stone
W1. Dallas - M.Zuccarello, A.Cogliano, B.Lovejoy
W2. Minnesota - SOLD M.Granlund

Stone is the best player in that bunch but every team except Minnesota helped themselves.

The above breakdown of the Western Conference is courtesy of EbonyRaptor.

This is the first year that Stan Bowman didn't make a trade (an NHL one – Iacopelli for Watson doesn't count) within days of the NHL trade deadline day. The times, they are a-changin'.

The Blackhawks play again on Wednesday (Anaheim), Saturday (LA) and Sunday (San Jose) as they head on their Western road swing. If they have any hopes of getting into the playoffs, they need to go on another big winning streak.

In other news, Corey Crawford has been activated from the IR and Colin Delia has been sent to Rockford. I am cautiously optimistic that he makes an impact in his return, which I would guess is going to be Saturday.

The Blackhawks only made one other "paper move" sending Dylan Sikura down to Rockford today to make him eligible for the Calder Cup postseason. I would assume he comes right back up to join the team on the upcoming road trip.

I was really surprised that there weren't more paper moves like Dahlstrom. The big Swede is now ineligible for the AHL playoffs. I guess with the amount of defenceman in Rockford, they opted not to make that move. It could end up hurting them if the IceHogs make the playoffs though.

So, the deadline has come and gone and the Hawks are moving forward with what they have. What's the optimal lineup once everyone is healthy? Here's what I would do if I were Coach JC:

Caggiula-Toews-Kane
DeBrincat-Strome-Kahun
Anisimov-Kampf-Saad
Perlini/Sikura-Kruger-Hayden

Keith-Seabrook
Dahlstrom-Murphy
Koekoek-Gustafsson

Crawford

Ex: Kunitz, Forsling, Ward

I would like to see Jokiharju back up at some point and wouldn't mind getting a look at a couple other players as well. Dylan Sikura isn't doing much for me these days and I would love to see Matthew Highmore enter the scene once he's healthy in March.

That's all I have for now. Were you shocked at the lack of movement today? Are you happy? Mad?

Talk to me.

JL

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