Former NHL defenseman Shea Weber has already been inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, but he’s now technically a member of the Blackhawks.
The Hawks acquired Weber’s dead-weight contract — which carries a $7.86 million salary-cap hit until it expires at the end of next season — from Utah in an unexpected NHL deadline-day trade Friday.
The idea is that Weber’s contract ensures the Hawks will be able to reach the salary-cap floor next season, since the Hawks previously had only $54.7 million in committed salary for next season while the floor is set to be $70.6 million.
If the Hawks succeed in reeling in a couple big-name free agents or trade additions this summer, as they will try to do, they might reach the cap floor anyway. In that case, they could place Weber’s contract on long-term injured reserve, making it not count against the cap.
If they fail to do that and do need help reaching the floor, they could place Weber on regular injured reserve — the same thing they’ve done with injured goalie Laurent Brossoit this season — so that he does count against the cap.
The Hawks also acquired two low-level prospects, forward Aku Raty and defenseman Victor Soderstrom, from Utah in the trade. They sent a 2026 fifth-round draft pick in exchange.
Raty, 23, has tallied 63 points in 105 AHL games over the last two seasons and made one NHL appearance. Soderstrom, 24, was the 11th overall pick in the 2019 draft, but he never panned out in four seasons in the Coyotes organization — bouncing back and forth between the NHL and AHL — and is now playing in Sweden.
For Weber, it’s surely funny how much his contract has been passed around — from the Golden Knights to the Coyotes and now to the Hawks — since he played his last NHL game for the Canadiens in the 2021 Stanley Cup Final.