The upcoming 2025 NHL Trade Deadline will be Stan Bowman’s first trade deadline as general manager of the Edmonton Oilers, but he does have 11 previous trade deadlines under his belt with the Chicago Blackhawks. Like the Oilers, the Blackhawks had Stanley Cup aspirations, so looking back at Stan Bowman’s trade history in previous GM tenure could provide some insight into what Bowman could be thinking for this season.
The deadline is just over a week away, with teams having to make their final trades before 3 p.m. EST on March 7. What might happen for Edmonton? Here’s a complete look at Bowman deadline trades!
2010 Deadline
In his first trade deadline, Bowman made two trades in the two days leading up to the deadline.
The first was a trade with the St. Louis Blues, where he sent Daryl Boyle and Joe Fallon away in exchange for Danny Richmond and Hannu Toivonen. None of those players would play an NHL game with either club, making it very much a nothing burger.
The next day Bowman acquired Nick Boynton from the Anaheim Ducks for future considerations. Boyton played just seven regular season games and three playoff games that year, but all three of those playoff games were in the Final. He was on the ice for the Stanley Cup winner (and seemed to be the only other person aside from Kane that saw the puck go in) so that has to count for something, right?
In reality, the big move that year for Bowman came just under a month before the trade deadline, when he traded away future Oiler Cam Barker to the Minnesota Wild in exchange for Kim Johnsson and Nick Leddy. Johnsson wouldn’t play a playoff game but Leddy would go on to play four solid seasons with the Blackhawks and win another Cup with them, so definitely a win.
If you just look at the two moves that would be considered deadline moves, then it was a meh deadline. The Blackhawks got a decent depth player for literally nothing, which isn’t ever really a bad thing and they did win the Cup that year, so I guess it could be considered a win.
2011 Deadline
Bowman made one trade on the deadline in 2011, when he traded former Oiler Ryan Potulny and a second-round pick to the Ottawa Senators in exchange for Chris Campoli and a conditional seventh-round pick.
Potulny had just come off of a 32-point season in just 64 games with the Oilers, but he only managed three games with the Blackhawks—playing the rest of the season in the minors.
Campoli had 14 points in 58 games for Ottawa and was brought in as a depth piece on the blueline.
Campoli would play pretty well for the Blackhawks, scoring seven points in just 19 games. However, he would muster just one assist in seven playoff games as Chicago would fall in the first round to Vancouver.
Like in the previous year, Bowman’s big trade happened a bit ahead of the deadline, as two weeks prior he acquired Michael Frolik and Alexander Salak from the Florida Panthers for Hugh Jessiman, Jack Skille and David Pacan.
Frolik would shine in the playoffs, scoring five points in the seven games, and play another two seasons with the team, culminating with a Stanley Cup win in 2013.
The only other player in the deal to play in any NHL games after the trade was Skille, who scored a grand total of 24 points in 99 games with the Panthers before bouncing around the league for another four seasons.
So again, a deadline with a decent add prior to it, and then a depth defenceman trade on the actual deadline itself.
2012 Deadline
Bowman made two trades on the February 27, 2012 deadline, one where he traded away future all-star John Scott to the New York Rangers for a fifth-round pick, and also acquired Johnny Oduya from the Winnipeg Jets for a second and third-round pick.
Oduya was fairly coveted at the deadline as a solid stay at home defenceman, hence the fairly high price. Oduya would add some offence with Chicago though, scoring five points in 18 regular season games and then three assists in six playoff games. Unfortunately, Chicago was once again bounced in the first round, this time by the Phoenix Coyotes.
Oduya would play another three seasons with Chicago, however, and would win two more Cups with the team.
The second-round pick would end up being traded to Washington, who selected Zach Sanford. Winnipeg would keep the third-rounder and pick JC Lipon, who played all of nine games in the NHL.
This deadline could definitely be looked at as a win for Bowman, although really it is a win for the future seasons rather than that particular one.
2013 Deadline
Bowman made three trades leading up to the 2013 trade deadline. Two days before it, he acquired Michal Handzus from the San Jose Sharks in exchange for a fourth-round pick. The next day, he sent away Philippe Paradis to the Tampa Bay Lightning for Kirill Gotovets. Finally, on the actual deadline day he acquired Maxime Sauve from Boston for Rob Flick.
Handzus ended up being a great acquisition, scoring six points in 11 regular season games and then 11 points in 23 playoff games en route to a Stanley Cup—not bad for someone known as a checking centre.
Meanwhile, not a single other player involved in these deals would play an NHL game in the future.
Therefore, you can certainly chalk this up as another win for Bowman.
2014 Deadline
Bowman didn’t make any trades on the actual deadline day in 2014, but he did make two in the days leading up to it.
He first traded away Brandon Pirri to the Florida Panthers in exchange for a third- and fifth-round pick, and then two days later acquired Mathieu Brisebois and David Rundblad from the Coyotes in exchange for a second-round pick.
Pirri was a 22-year-old who had 11 points in 28 games at the time of the trade, but didn’t appear to have a spot on the team.
The Rundblad trade was a bit of a whiff, however. Rundblad had been a pretty highly touted prospect but hadn’t found his footing in the NHL with three previous clubs. However, at age 22 there was still some hope, and so this trade definitely appeared to be one with the future in mind given the Blackhawks had Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook, the above mentioned Leddy and Oduya along with Niklas Hjalmarsson as a pretty formidable defence corps.
Rundblad would play in only five games that year, but would appear in 49 the year after, scoring 14 points. He would only suit up for five playoff games though, and then just nine regular season and three playoff games the year after.
The second-round pick, meanwhile, ended up being used by Arizona to pick Christian Dvorak, who has enjoyed a fairly solid NHL career.
This deadline would definitely be considered a miss by Bowman—the first of his career.
2015 Deadline
This would be Bowman’s busiest deadline season to date, at least by trade numbers.
Four days before the deadline Bowman traded TJ Brennan to the Maple Leafs in exchange for Spencer Abbott. The next day he acquired Kimmo Timonen from the Flyers for a second-round pick and a conditional fourth. The day after that he sent away Klas Dehlback and a first-round pick to Arizona for Antoine Vermette. He took a day of rest and then finished it off on the deadline day with trading Ben Smith and a conditional seventh-round pick to the San Jose Sharks for Andrew Desjardins.
The Brennan and Abbott trade was just a minor deal swap, but the other three were definitely impactful for the big league team.
Sure, Timonen wouldn’t score a point in 34 games over the regular season and playoffs, but he still provided some depth defence in what would be his last season. You might prefer a bit more than that for what ended up being two second-round picks mind you (the condition on the fourth-round pick was met), and you could point to the fact that Timonen hadn’t played all season due to injury as a reason to say it wasn’t worth the risk, but hey, flags fly forever and neither of the players picked amounted to much anyway.
Vermette had 13 goals and 35 points in 63 games with the Coyotes, which would put him on track to tie his 45 points from the season before. It was a good insurance bet given Patrick Kane was out with a broken clavicle bone. Vermette would score just three assists in 19 regular season games and four goals and seven points in 20 playoff games. It should be noted that three of those four goals were game winning goals, meaning Vermette almost won a whole series for the team. That is probably worth a prospect and a first, and especially when you look at the fact that those two pieces didn’t end up amounting to much anyway.
Smith was a fan favourite, but after obtaining a two-year, $3M deal from a 14-goal, 26-point season, his nine points in 61 games wasn’t exactly cutting it. So the Blackhawks traded him out for Desjardins, who made exactly half of what Smith did while putting up identical production. Desjardins would play in all but two of the Blackhawks playoff games, scoring four points in the 21 games. He would then play another two seasons with Chicago before heading to Europe.
While the deals above weren’t exactly homeruns, when the team wins the Cup and none of the pieces you sent away end up haunting you, it should be considered at least a decent deadline.
2016 Deadline
Bowman made five trades leading up to the 2016 deadline. The first was righting a prior wrong, where he reacquired Andrew Ladd, along with Matt Fraser and Jay Harrison, from the Winnipeg Jets in exchange for Marko Dano, a first-round pick and a conditional third-round pick.
Later that day, Bowman exchanged Rob Scuderi with Christian Ehrhoff from the Kings, and then sent away a 22-year-old Phillip Danault and second-round pick to Montreal for Dale Weise and Tomas Fleischmann.
Finally, on trade deadline day he pulled the trigger on two more deals, acquiring Tim Jackman and a seventh-round pick from Anaheim in exchange for Corey Tropp, and got Drew MacIntyre from the Hurricanes for Dennis Robertson.
Since being traded away from Chicago in 2010, Ladd had been a fairly steady 20 goal 50 point player. In 2016, he had 17 goals and 34 points in 59 games, keeping true to the trend. Ladd ended up scoring 12 points in 19 games for the Blackhawks, but then only two points in seven playoff games in a first round loss to St. Louis. Neither Harrison nor Fraser played for the Blackhawks. On the other end, Marko Dano never amounted to much and the player picked with the first-round pick, German Rubstov, didn’t either.
The Blackhawks had actually just acquired Scuderi a couple months prior to the deadline, when they traded Trevor Daley to the Penguins for him. He wasn’t working out, clearly, and so Bowman decided to flip him for yet another veteran defenceman in Ehrhoff. Ehrhoff had 10 points in 40 games at that point but was eventually waived and assigned to the AHL, just two weeks prior to the trade. Ehrhoff would play only eight games with Chicago. The fact that Scuderi and Ehrhoff both played for the Penguins, Kings and Blackhawks within the span of two seasons might be the most interesting part of this trade.
The next trade saw Bowman trade a 22-year-old former first-round pick with just five points in 32 games away for two veteran forwards to bolster the team for a playoff run. Fleischmann had 20 points in 57 games at the time and Weise had 26 points in 56 games, so honestly not a terrible bet. Unfortunately, that bet busted, as Weise had just one point in 15 regular season games and one goal in four playoff games, while Fleischmann had five points in 19 regular season games and was pointless in his four playoff games.
Meanwhile, Danault posted another five points in his 21 games that season with Montreal, before scoring 40 points the next season. Danault would then go on to score at least 47 points in a season five more times in his career, and likely will hit his sixth time this year. The Canadiens would also use the second-round pick on Alexander Romanov, so Montreal made out like bandits here.
The two actual deadline day trades were also nothing burgers. Jackman didn’t play a single game, nor did the player who the Blackhawks picked with the seventh rounder they got with him. MacIntyre also did not play for the Blackhawks, and only Tropp played any NHL games (1) after the trades.
This deadline was definitely a loss for Bowman. While the bets made on Ladd, Weise and Fleischmann weren’t terrible given how they were playing, losing two former first-round prospects along with a first- and a second-round pick for them is pretty steep for the lack of results. That becomes even worse when one of the prospects turned out as well as Danault has, especially since it was literally the season after.
2017 Deadline
Once again, Bowman made two trades in the week leading up to the deadline and then topped it off with a trade on the actual day.
A week before the deadline, Bowman traded a third-round pick for future Oiler Tomas Jurco. Four days later he got Johnny Oduya for a second go around, this time for prospect Mark McNeil and a conditional fourth-round pick. He then traded away Sam Carrick and Spencer Abbott to Anaheim in exchange for Kenton Helgesen and a seventh-round pick.
Jurco had been struggling mightily in Detroit and didn’t fare much better in Chicago, scoring just one goal in 13 games that season. He would improve a bit the next year with 10 points in 29 games, but then would spend the entire season after that in the minors.
Oduya wasn’t quite the same as his first go around, putting up two points in 15 regular season games and then no points in the four games where Chicago got swept by Nashville. McNeill didn’t end up being a huge loss, mind you, as he only ended up playing one NHL game after that.
Carrick and Abbott were AHL players for the Blackhawks, although Abbott did get in one NHL game, and they remained that way with Anaheim after the trade. The same was true of Hegelsen, so once again a minor league deal was completed for reasons.
This wasn’t much of a deadline and didn’t end up making a difference, good or bad, although one would have thought perhaps the Blackhawks would be a little gun shy about giving up another first round prospect in McNeill after letting go of Danault the year prior.
2018 Deadline
This was the first season under Bowman’s watch that the Blackhawks did not make the playoffs, and that showed in the trades made.
First he made a minor league trade by sending Ville Pokka to the Ottawa Senators in exchange for Chris DiDomenico two weeks before the deadline, then traded Michal Kempny to the other capital city in Washington for a third-round pick a few days later.
On deadline day, he traded Tommy Wingels to the Bruins for a conditional fifth round pick, and then Ryan Hartman to the Nashville Predators, along with a fifth-round pick, for Victor Ejdsell, a first-round pick and a fourth-round pick.
Sure you could make the argument that trading a 22-year-old Hartman doesn’t exactly scream rebuilding, but getting futures for him does.
It’s hard to judge this deadline too much given the lack of moves, other than of course trading Hartman. But, given it was a rebuilding deadline, it isn’t exactly that instructive for Oilers fans on how Bowman may approach the deadline this season.
2019 Deadline
For a second straight season, the Blackhawks did not make the playoffs and so were not buyers at the deadline. They only made one trade a week before the deadline, trading away Darren Raddysh to the New York Rangers in exchange for Peter Holland.
Neither team got any use out of either player, although Radysh is now playing quite well in Tampa Bay, scoring 33 points last year and is at 23 points in just 48 games this year, so maybe the team gave up on him too soon.
Given this was the only trade, I am not sure you can even grade this deadline.
2020 Deadline
At the time of the 2020 deadline, the Blackhawks were last in the Central Division and 12th in the Western Conference, with the playoffs looking almost assuredly out of reach. So it’s not too surprising that two of the three trades made were selling off players, and the third was a minor league trade.
Bowman first traded former Oiler draft pick Erik Gustafsson to the Calgary Flames in exchange for a third-round pick. Next, he got TJ Brennan from the Flyers in exchange for Nathan Noel, because for some reason Bowman loves to re-acquire players he has traded away (see also: Oduya, Ladd, Brandon Saad, Brandon Pirri, to name a few).
Finally, he traded away Robin Lehner to the Vegas Golden Knights in exchange for Malcolm Subban, Slava Demin and a second-round pick, leading to some drama between Fleury’s agent and the Knights.
As these were all rebuilding moves, there hasn’t been much of a return on them just yet, but at the time they weren’t necessarily horrible value. Ironically, the Blackhawks did end up making the playoffs that year, due to the COVID pandemic stopping the season and allowing for an expanded playoffs that meant the Blackhawks got to play in a “play-in” round against the Oilers, knocking them out and heading into the “first round”.
2021 Deadline
This was Bowman’s last deadline as the Blackhawks’ GM, and at the time of the deadline they sat in fifth place of the Discover Central Division, one of the four new divisions made for the purposes of the shortened 2020–21 season, just two points out of a playoff spot. However, the four trades he made on deadline day did not appear to be “buying” trades.
He first traded Matthew Highmore to Vancouver for Adam Gaudette. Highmore had two points in 24 games with Chicago, while Gaudette had seven in 33 with Vancouver. Gaudette would score four points in seven games, but then just two in eight the next season before he was waived.
He then traded future Oiler Mattias Janmark to the Vegas Golden Knights in a three-way trade with the San Jose Sharks. Chicago ended up with a second and third-round pick, which were used on Colton Dach and Samuel Savoie. Dach alone makes this seem like a pretty good trade.
Bowman also traded Carl Soderberg to the Colorado Avalanche for Ryder Rolston and Josh Dickinson, however, neither of them are in the NHL anymore.
His final trade was sending Madison Bowey to the Vancouver Canucks in exchange for a fourth- and fifth-round pick. The player they picked with the fourth-round pick, Ethan Del Mastro, has already played more games for the Blackhawks this season (7) than Bowey did with the Canucks (2). So that is a win right there.
Again, it’s hard to judge a deadline when there aren’t huge pieces to buy or sell, but getting some decent draft capital isn’t bad. And frankly, there should be some kudos to Bowman for not trying to push for a playoff spot and still think about the future.
What does it mean for Edmonton?
Bowman gets a lot of criticism for his trades, but it appears that those are non-deadline time trades.
When the Blackhawks were competing for the Cup, Bowman didn’t necessarily seem to feel beholden to make big trades for the sake of a trade. That being said, he wasn’t shy to do so, and was quite proactive, having a tendency to make trades in the days and weeks leading up to the deadline rather than waiting until the last minute.
His last two deadlines in the Blackhawks’ competitive window were not great, however, especially 2016 where a lot of the future was sacrificed and the results did not follow.
It would look like Oilers fans can expect a trade or two before the deadline, and more likely than not a veteran defenceman is going to come, given Bowman’s history in addition to the fact the Oilers need a defenceman.
It also seems like the Oilers will acquire someone Bowman once traded away, given that he appears to have the NHL’s worst case of buyers remorse.
Who will those players be? We will just have to sit back and see, but the above hopefully provides some insight into what we can probably expect.
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