On the Beat: Silly season has begun, and the Blackhawks are poised to act

The Stanley Cup playoffs are over and the NHL’s silly season has begun. Mark Lazerus of the Sun-Times and Tracey Myers, fresh off covering the Stanley Cup Final for NHL.com, dive into the trade speculation and what big changes could be in store ahead of next week’s draft. Historically, the Hawks have made big moves around draft time. Most of those moves were salary-cap casualties. This year, they have cap space to burn and plenty of holes to fill, so it should be a particularly interesting few weeks. Here’s a rundown of what Mark and Tracey discuss on this week’s episode of On The Beat:

0:00 The Capitals and Alex Ovechkin finally win the big one

10:45 Rocky Wirtz’s warning

13:15 Speculation season has begun; are the Hawks willing to move Brandon Saad?

17:15 Should we pump the brakes on Henri Jokiharju?

21:00 Sifting through listener trade proposals

29:30 Michal Kempny is a Stanley Cup champion

32:50 More trade proposals, free agency talk

46:52: Previewing next weekend’s NHL Draft.

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