MONTREAL — After three disappointing but hardly ruinous seasons, Kirby Dach’s tenure with the Blackhawks has ended shockingly abruptly.
Dach was traded to the Canadiens at the NHL Draft on Thursday for the 13th and 66th overall picks.
The trade completes a crazy day for new Hawks general manager Kyle Davidson, who hours earlier dealt Alex DeBrincat to the Senators for the seventh overall pick and two others.
It’s a stunning heel-turn by the Hawks organization on Dach, the 2019 third overall pick. He’s still just 21 years old and still possesses all the raw skills to develop into an excellent two-way center.
But Davidson has clearly committed to a scorched-earth rebuild, tearing down the Hawks’ entire present roster to accumulate as many picks and prospects as possible, and he does have only so many assets with significant trade value to work with.
Dach ends his Chicago tenure having tallied just 59 points in 152 games over three years, missing almost all of 2021 recovering from wrist surgery and struggling to find his groove — on or off the ice — through most of 2021-22. He recorded just 26 points in 70 games, clearly lacking confidence, before more wrist aggravation shut him down.
