Here are some positive things I know about Dylan Strome.
• He has four goals and seven assists in his last nine games.
• He had 90 points in his first 116 games with the Blackhawks.
• He is 12th in the league in faceoffs, winning 56.7 percent of his draws.
• He has rare vision and creativity, along with an innate psychic connection with the Blackhawks’ best goal scorer, Alex DeBrincat.
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Here are some negative things I know about Dylan Strome:
• He is not a great skater.
• He is not exactly Jonathan Toews in his own end.
• He is exasperatingly inconsistent.
• He will be due a $3.6 million qualifying offer as a restricted free agent this summer.
Now here is one thing I know about, let’s say, a third-round draft pick, which is what one NHL executive told me is Strome’s likely ceiling on the trade market:
• In the last 10 drafts, the only Blackhawks third-round picks that have made it to the NHL are John Hayden and Dennis Gilbert.
Yes, I’m writing about Dylan Strome again. To be fair, it’s been a while since I have. But the reason I keep coming back to him is that he remains the most intriguing and difficult-to-pin-down player on an otherwise dull and uninspiring roster. He’s maddening yet tantalizing, having promise yet having peaked. The team wants to dump him for a bucket of pucks one month, and he’s the first-line center scoring a hat trick the next. The Strome news cycle never ends, because even as he approaches his 25th birthday in March, we somehow don’t know exactly what he is, and what he can be.
Even in Friday’s scrappy 6-4 loss to the relentless Avalanche, Chicago’s fourth loss in five games to open this brutal run of games, we saw Strome in full — he had a ghastly turnover on an early power play that led to a short-handed breakaway for Colorado, but he spent the rest of the game around the Avalanche net, creating more chances than just about any of his teammates, then won a prolonged puck battle on the forecheck to set up Patrick Kane’s second goal with his second assist late in the third period.
It’s a roller-coaster ride some nights.
The Blackhawks have been trying to trade Strome, unsuccessfully, for a full year now. So if, at the last minute before the March 21 trade deadline, some GM takes a flier and throws a third-rounder at Kyle Davidson, the safe bet is he’ll take it and move on from the enigmatic Strome. And I get it. Really, I do.
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I just don’t agree with it.
It’s easy to talk yourself in circles on Strome — both Jeremy Colliton and Derek King have done just that, bouncing him in, out and around the lineup almost daily for more than a year — so let’s look at all the reasons to keep him, and all the reasons to trade him, and see where we land.
Keep him: The first argument is the simplest. Strome can create goals on a team that can’t score. The Blackhawks are the worst offensive team in the league, and there’s literally nobody behind Lukas Reichel who can make a significant difference. Unless the Blackhawks are really trying to bottom out next season and tank their way to a top draft pick — not something I believe they’re truly inclined to do, given the hit they’d take in terms of gate revenue and given it’s the last year of Toews’ and Patrick Kane’s contracts — they simply don’t get better by giving away one of the few players on the roster who can produce. Certainly not for middling futures.
Trade him: Yeah, but he has pretty much proved he can only produce in a very specific situation: when he’s playing center with high-end linemates. He can’t produce on his own, he can’t drive a line, and he can’t be converted to a winger, something Colliton desperately tried to do. Strome needs to play a very specific role, and it’s not a role the Blackhawks have available, not with Toews, Kirby Dach and Reichel in his way. Hell, after just two games, Patrick Kane already has heart-emoji eyes for the speedy Reichel.
Keep him: Being able to play with — and think like — high-end players is a valuable skill in the NHL. Think of all the centers Kane has gone through over the last decade; this game isn’t plug-and-play. If Strome gets more out of himself and his linemates, then you create that role for him and adjust accordingly. Dach is a more well-rounded player than Strome, but he’s at a ghastly 33.6 percent at the dot. I usually downplay the importance of faceoffs (analytics has shown they don’t mean much in the long run), but that’s when we’re talking about the difference between 53 percent and 47 percent. Dach’s faceoff numbers are truly abysmal, and there’s been no sign of improvement. Maybe it’s time to try him out at wing and see whether you have a burgeoning Marian Hossa on your hands.
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And Toews’ absence Friday night (he was placed in concussion protocol with no timeline for a return) underscores how the Blackhawks’ center situation isn’t nearly as locked in as it might seem. Toews has one year left on his contract, and his long-term physical durability remains an open question. Dach can’t win a draw. And Reichel has played all of two NHL games and was originally drafted as a winger. After them, it’s the likes of Ryan Carpenter, Sam Lafferty, Henrik Borgström and MacKenzie Entwistle — useful guys, but not top-six guys. The Blackhawks are loaded with bottom-six energy guys and grinders. They don’t have a lot of guys who can do what Strome can do.
Trade him: Strome is too expensive. He’s not worth a $3.6 million qualifying offer, and probably wants a longer-term deal with a raise bigger than that. Especially if he keeps up his recent hot play.
Keep him: First of all, the Blackhawks’ cap situation really isn’t that dire. They’ll have a ton of flexibility starting in summer 2023, when the matching monster deals for Kane and Toews come off the books (even with DeBrincat due a monster contract of his own). And frankly, $3.6 million is a pretty fair price for a player like Strome. Yes, in this economy. Here are some other players making between $3.5 million and $3.8 million — J.T. Compher (a Northbrook native who had a goal and a fight Friday night), Cal Clutterbuck, Brandon Tanev, Lars Eller, Chris Tierney, Rickard Rakell and Jake DeBrusk (Boston’s own version of Strome). That’s the going rate for a half-a-point-a-game kind of player. It’ll cost a hell of a lot more than that for similar production in the ever-escalating feeding frenzy of unrestricted free agency. And it’s not as if some other team is going to offer Strome a seven-year contract. Lock him in for two or three years at the going rate. Because, and it bears repeating, unless the Blackhawks’ scouting staff mines Europe for another hidden gem or two, there’s not much help coming from within.
And I know the league is skewing ever younger, but Ryan Hartman is 27 and he’s having a breakout season as a top-line center in Minnesota. Teuvo Teravainen didn’t really become the player he is in Carolina until he was 24. Strome is hardly on the wrong side of the aging curve.
Trade him: He’s turning 25 on March 7. He’s almost seven years removed from his draft year. He is what he is. And what he is is a completely one-dimensional player who’s not even consistent at that one dimension. He’ll never be anything more than that. Time to accept that.
Keep him: Are we sure about that? When Strome found himself a healthy scratch under both Colliton and King, it was usually for his defensive weakness. But since that baffling scratch in Montreal six weeks ago, King has mostly raved about Strome’s improvement — and just as important, his commitment to improving — away from the puck. Take a look at Dom Luszczyszyn’s player cards: You know who has one of the best defensive ratings on the team, by far? Dylan Strome. According to Dom, Strome has been worth 9.2 fewer goals against than an average player. His 2.1 xGA/60 is a tick better than Brandon Saad’s. Now before you start your Strome for Selke campaigns, we have to acknowledge that it’s because he’s been used in a way that’s protected him from difficult defensive matchups. He’s being sheltered. But it’s working. And it can continue to work. That’s a coach’s job, right? To put players in a position to succeed?
Trade him: It shouldn’t be this hard. Not after all this time. Not if he’s as good as you seem to think he is, as good as you want him to be, as good as the Blackhawks need him to be.
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Keep him: On a better team, that probably would be true. But on this team, this starved-for-depth-scoring team, Strome is good enough to play a key, if supporting, role behind DeBrincat and Kane. He comes at market value, he’s not blocking anyone of any significance, he put in the work to become a dominant faceoff man, and he’s putting in the work to become a viable defensive player.
You know what you have in Strome. And even with all the frustrations that come with it, he’s a hell of a lot more valuable than the hope and prayer that is a midround draft pick. If he stays red hot and that somehow becomes a first-rounder by mid-March, this is a different discussion.
But as of now, it’s pretty simple: This team doesn’t get any better by trading Strome. And that’s reason enough to keep him.
(Photo: Melissa Tamez / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
