The news broke late last Friday night. The Chicago Blackhawks traded veteran winger Patrick Sharp and rising defenseman Stephen Johns to the Dallas Stars for defenseman Trevor Daley and forward Ryan Garbutt.

Looking at the trade, it’s easy to see that the Blackhawks received the bad end of the deal. They gave up a veteran leader and a promising young prospect for an average defenseman and a forward whose rough and physical style of play the Hawks don’t really need given they have Andrew Desjardins and Andrew Shaw on the roster. Why did they make the trade, and to a division rival no less?

Because they had to. Even though Sharp is a proven goal scorer, the trade market for him was thin, with his big cap hit of $5.9 Million, his age, and his declining production discouraging potential trade partners away. The only trade partners the Hawks were able to find were the Stars, and to make the deal happen, they had to give up a high valued prospect like Johns. The Hawks were never in a position to ask for a bigger return package from the Stars given their salary cap issues and the small market for Sharp. Trading Sharp and Johns for Daley and Garbutt frees up $1.7 million in cap space for the Hawks. All the Hawks need to do now is trade away Bryan Bickell, whose $4 million cap hit is an absolute killer. However, many hockey reporters have called Bickell “untradeable”, meaning no one wants him. If the Blackhawks somehow are able to trade away Bickell, they will have enough cap room to re-sign center Marcus Kruger, which has been a big priority for them this offseason.

Even though almost everyone saw this trade coming, fans are starting to realize just how big of an impact Sharp had on the team. Sharp had been with the Hawks since 2005, when the Hawks were among the NHL’s worst teams. Sharp was a leader in the locker room and mentored young players like Kane, Toews, Keith, and Seabrook when they first joined the team. Those players are now franchise cornerstones and, along with Sharp, have led the Blackhawks to three Stanley Cup championships in the last six seasons. Sharp was also able to handle adversity well, and that trait seemed to spread to his Blackhawks teammates. He was instrumental in the success the Blackhawks have had the last half-decade.

Sharp was also one of seven Blackhawks players that have been on the team during all three of their recent Stanley Cup wins, and now that he’s gone, it’s starting to sink in just how different this team will be. With players like Sharp and Saad gone and players like Anisimov, Dano, Tropp, Tikhonov, Daley, and Garbutt arriving, Blackhawk fans are hoping that these new players will help the Blackhawks deliver the same results they have in recent years.

Two days after he was traded, Patrick Sharp took out a full page ad in the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper thanking the Blackhawks, their fans and the city of Chicago for their support. Thank you Sharp, and good luck in the future.