SALT LAKE CITY — It’s perfectly clear and understandable why Seth Jones would like to be traded.
He wants to play for a winning team, and the Blackhawks have been abysmal in each of his four seasons in Chicago. They’re hoping to start improving soon, but as the 30-year-old defenseman said last week, “my timeline might be different” than the franchise’s.
It’s much less clear and understandable, however, why the Hawks would trade Jones, aside from perhaps wanting to do right by him as a person or wanting to remove a potential distraction from the locker room.
Jones’ informal trade request comes at the same time as Hawks general manager Kyle Davidson is about to get aggressive bringing in established, talented, upper-end players — players exactly like Jones — to bolster his NHL roster and supplement its incoming youth movement.
The organization intends to begin climbing the standings next season, and they’ll need a well-formed defensive corps — among other things — in order to do so. Any well-formed defensive corps needs a No. 1 defenseman to anchor the unit.
The Hawks have Alex Vlasic averaging nearly 24 minutes per game in the NHL this season — only 47 seconds less than Jones — but Vlasic probably doesn’t bring quite enough offensive pop to be a true No. 1 defenseman long-term. He’ll be better suited as a defense-focused No. 2 who can also move the puck.
The Hawks also have three elite defensive prospects — Artyom Levshunov, Sam Rinzel and Kevin Korchinski — ready or nearly ready to graduate into the NHL, one of whom (Levshunov) they hope eventually develops into a No. 1 and another of whom (Rinzel) has developed so rapidly it’s not inconceivable he could become a No. 1. But that wouldn’t be until a couple seasons from now, at best.
Ethan Del Mastro, Louis Crevier, Nolan Allan and Wyatt Kaiser add depth to the defensive pipeline, but none of them project to ever be more than third-pairing guys. And veterans Alec Martinez, Connor Murphy and T.J. Brodie aren’t even worth mentioning in this conversation.
In other words, the Hawks don’t have anyone immediately available to slide into Jones’ spot as their No. 1 defenseman, imperfect as he may be in that role. Which means if Davidson trades Jones, he’ll need to turn around and promptly find another Jones.
The best pending free-agent defensemen this summer are Aaron Ekblad, Jakob Chychrun and Ivan Provorov, and among those three, only Ekblad is a No. 1 on his current team. There’s no guarantee all three make it to open market, either, although Ekblad’s potentially imminent departure may circuitously make the Panthers interested in Jones.
Plus, Davidson will already have his hands full pursuing the best pending free-agent forwards, too, if Mikko Rantanen and/or Mitch Marner make it to market. Pitching the Hawks to any of these players will be a challenge, even though the organization does have plenty of money to offer them. It seems overly optimistic to believe they could manage to win not just one but two massive free-agent sweepstakes.
Looking ahead, it would probably make more sense — in several ways — for the Hawks to trade Jones in 2026-27 or 2027-28 rather than now or anytime soon.
In the meantime, Jones’ oversized salary-cap hit of $9.5 million would help them reach the salary floor next season, which could be challenging with so many cheap entry-level contracts populating the depth chart. By that time, Levshunov (or Rinzel) will ideally be more prepared to take over Jones’ role. And Jones’ contract will become easier for another team to absorb as the cap rises.
Jones likely wouldn’t enjoy sticking around for that long, but he holds no leverage in this situation. Then again, the Hawks don’t want this issue to become a dark cloud hanging over things. It’s a tricky route they’ll have to navigate.