On Wednesday, Blackhawks defenseman Seth Jones was thrust into the spotlight for the millionth time during his time in Chicago when he told Ben Pope of the Chicago Sun-Times that he and the Blackhawks were in open trade talks. The news wasn’t exactly a big surprise – Jones hasn’t made it a secret that he wants out of Chicago in order to go to a Stanley Cup contender and he’s certainly not worth the $9.5 million that the Blackhawks are paying him.
On Friday, Jones doubled down and told reporters that he has finally requested a trade from the team. The veteran defenseman doubled down on his public statement about his desire to be traded from the Blackhawks, and it seems now that it’s only a matter of time.
“I’ve been here the last four years through probably the darkest times the Blackhawks have seen for a while. I think things are moving up, they are moving forward. But I think my timeline might be different than Kyle (Davidson) and Norm’s (Maciver) and the Blackhawks. There’s nothing against anybody. I’m not holding it against anybody what they decided to do here. Sometimes it’s not in everyone’s plans. Obviously, this is my fourth year here. I’m not going to go through the whole process when I signed. Just where I’m at, you know, 30 years old, I still have some good years ahead. I want to hope to maybe be in a situation where I’m competing for a Stanley Cup, at least playing some meaningful games in May and hopefully June.”
– Seth Jones
On Wednesday, Jones said that he knows that “the money is not an easy thing to move, and that’s what we’re figuring out.” And he was right – while he’s a valuable NHL defenseman who plays a ton of minutes and has a decent bit of scoring ability, no one wants a player of Jones’ caliber at $9.5 million per year. Even worse is the term – a team could handle that strain on its salary cap for a year or two, but his current deal goes until 2030.
Jones mentioned that he and agent Pat Brisson were trying to “push the needle a little bit more,” which makes his decision to go public with the request make sense. There’s a chance he’s traded before the trade deadline on March 7, but Jones didn’t necessarily commit to forcing Chicago’s hand before then. One would think at this point that it would be more likely for the Blackhawks to trade him this summer; however, they’ve likely been working with potential trade partners for a while now.
While Jones would be a valuable member of any playoff contending team, those teams are more in search of rentable impact players for a season or two. They aren’t looking to stake their entire future on the idea that Jones could get them over the hump and have them playing in June. But if he can get one of those good teams to take him, everybody wins. Chicago opens up a bunch of cap space, Jones gets to play for a contender, and that team gets a strong defenseman as the salary cap jumps up, so they won’t notice his massive salary as much in the future.
