Didn't Toews want Saad back?

Ah yes. The 3 players of $10M+ theory.. how's that working around the league?

This team doesn't get past the first round regardless so the "what if" is kinda pointless

At least they get to the first round…

Yes. He and Kane wanted Saad back but didn’t expect the trade to be for Panarin. It was a gut punch.

at least they make the playoffs...

And are let up 100x better for the future than they are now

And this team is better than Toronto is right now imo. Doesn't have the defence to win the cup but man that offence would be fun

Yes but not for Panarin. Trust me neigther of them wanted panarin gone, especially Kane

Nice comeback

This is a true contender

No chance this roster is better than Toronto's current one. That's nothing but pure anti Toronto bias talk.

5th in the league in points percentage.
9th in goals for per game (10th in actual amount of goals scored)
3rd in goals against per game (4th in actual amount of goals against)
3rd on the PP
8th on the PK
1st in faceoffs

.... & you think THIS Chicago roster is better than a roster that's top 10 in so many categories? Sorry. That couldn't be further from the truth.

I don't think you're realizing this offence above would break the league

Not really. I think you're highly overrating it tbh. You're centre core here is honestly dog ****. Strome is not really an NHL option at centre that much. Toews hasn't been great since taking a year off. Sillinger is a rookie so you have no idea what kind of consistency you'll get from him. Kinda hard to break the league when you might not have the puck that much and you'd be fishing it out of your own net more times than not

it wasn't a comeback. I was saying at least this team makes the first round because the current team wont.

So you don't atcually watch the hawks you just make terrible takes about our players, got it. To say Strome isn't an NHL calliber center any more is absurd

Honestly, you're usually one of the few Hawks fans opinions that I respect on here.. but your opinion here is nothing but bias.

Strome had 1 hot *half* of a season when he started his career with Chicago and that was mainly just points. But he lacks production now, the foot speed still isn't great at all, lacks defensively responsibility, and honestly if he doesn't have linemates that are good, he just isn't anything special. Do you really want that as a centre? At best I'd say he's a 3LW but he's really not a good option at centre for this level at all.

This post was meant to be made just as a fun kind of thing and turned into a debate of team vs team. In reality you can't really compare a fantasy team to a real life team logically, and I tried to do that, so for that I apologize.

On Strome, all the analytics say strome has been an effective player for the hawks. The possesion metrics. (not sure if you're into that or not) are atcually quite strong. Additionally, the eye test coming from someone like myself who has watches 90+% of hawks games the last 10 years, including Stromes last 3 years here, say Strome looks like a pretty good player when he's put in the position to succeed. For whatever reason Colliton didn't like Strome and when he wasn't scratched was relegated to a 4th line role. Of course Strome isn't going to succeed as a 4th line grinder with carpenter and khaira. It makes no sense. When played in the top 9 with some offence around him strome has looked good imo and the analytics back that up. Strome is NOT a winger. He plays exponentially worse on the wing. He's one of our best faceoff guys so I never truly understand why we try to play him on the wing. Maybe it worked in juniors but not the NHL.

I truly believe given a competent coaching staff that Strome is a 50 point center in this league and solid 2C. Yes, his skating is a weakness, but he wins face-offs, is sound enough in his own end, and is really good playmaker, and will go to the dirty areas when he needs to. It's a shame that Chicago will probably never see the 51 points in 58 games strome that we saw a few years ago, but I wouldn't be surprised if he gets back to around that level of play if he's ever traded