Chicago received defenceman Trevor Daley and forward Ryan Garbutt for Sharp and prospect defenceman Stephen Johns.
“We thought it was important to acquire some ready-made NHL players,” stated Chicago Blackhawks general manager Stan Bowman. “Obviously it’s difficult trading away an established player like Patrick Sharp, and a very good young player in Stephen Johns who’s got a nice career ahead of him, but we felt that we wanted to continue to add pieces that can contribute to our team next season, and we’re excited for that.”
“I think the primary emphasis in this is more of an old-fashioned hockey trade,” Bowman added. “Sometimes when you make trades of players who make a lot of money you’re just trying to get draft picks or prospects back. The key thing for us was try to make our team better in the process.
“You’re obviously trading away a good player, but it wasn’t just trying to get things that would help us down the road. We like our team as it is right now, and we think we’ve got a very strong group of guys coming back, that led us to the Cup just a month ago, so that was really the thing that we talked about when we were in discussions with Dallas, was trying to get something that could help us right now.
“So we did clear some salary-cap space in the process, which is a positive, so I think from that perspective it would serve a dual-purpose move.”
Patrick Sharp had 43 points (16 goals) in 68 regular-season games last season, and 15 points (five goals) in 23 Stanley Cup Playoff games. In 2013-14, he had 78 points (34 goals) in 82 regular-season games.
Sharp played 679 regular-season games over the past 10 seasons for Chicago, with 511 points (239 goals). He had 81 points (43 goals) in 129 playoff games with Chicago and the Philadelphia Flyers, who traded him on Dec. 5, 2005.
With files from nhl.com