So the Hawks have 3.5 capable defenseman. Smart.

Buying out Hossa saves only $660K in cap space. Buying out Kruger saves about $800K. Saving 1.4M in cap space isn't worth that.
History shows Q depends heavily on his top 3 D. Trading away one of them doesn't seem plausible or make the team better.
Q mixes & matches the lines up a lot, but I don't seem him putting Kane & Panarin up with Toews to start games. I think they're going to try out a few players with Toews, and maybe try to find a cheap veteran that can at least be in the right position at the right time to play with Toews. There's rebounds and scrums on the Toews line, so they need a forward to crash the net on the top line, imo.