Not that it’s Earth-shattering news, but friend of the program (and probably soon to be re-assigned for doing so) Scott Powers of ESPN Chicago is reporting that Kevin Hayes won’t sign with the Hawks before the August 15th deadline and will hit the open market. Most everyone has known this would be the case since about April when Hayes’s college career at Boston College ended. The Hawks have tried everything they can offer-wise, shrinking the term on his entry-level so he can get to restricted free agency quicker. Some have speculated it’s an ill-feeling after the trade of his brother Jimmy. The more likely one speculated is that Hayes doesn’t see himself cracking the lineup in Chicago immediately, or at least not the top six where he might have to play.
Let’s go for a twofer today, and ramp up the importance. It’s one thing to go through your bottom pairing platoon, who in the end you’d rather just not notice. But these guys matter, and may matter in other ways this offseason. So let’s do it.
Nick Leddy
Regular Season: 82 games, 7 goals, 24 assists, 31 points, +10, -0.02 Behind The Net, 14.86 Corsi/60 (+3.4 Corsi Relative/60)
Playoffs: 18 games, 1 goal, 4 assists, 5 points, -3, -1.66 Behind The Net, 3.39 Corsi/60 (+8.3 Corsi Relative/60)
What We Liked: It’s a well known fact at this point that me and Jen LC have a huge Leddy crush. Those numbers in the regular season came with three rotating partners (rotating pies!) all season. Though they also came with pretty heavily tilted zone starts, as Leds started 63% of his shifts in the offensive zone. But for most of the year, Leddy was a possession driver, a one-man trap-buster who really started to feel his oats in the middle of the year by pushing with his wheels up the ice. Outside of Kane doing Kane things, there are few more exciting moments watching the Hawks than when Leddy kicks it into gear through the zone. His four power play goals were more than Keith’s, even though Leddy ran the second unit and got less time despite being the superior PP QB. Oh, and that goal in Game 2 against LA… it portends to so much.
