The rumours had been swirling basically all year that Seth Jones would be traded and that happened about an hour before the 2021 NHL Entry Draft. As had been rumoured, the Chicago Blackhawks have acquired the 26-year-old blue liner and subsequently extended him for seven years. It really took me a minute to get my head around all of this so I'll let Darren Dreger do the talking:

Dreger later corrected himself that it was an eight-year contract.

This is the full deal:

Right out of the gate, this probably makes Jones not roster-able in cap leagues. His absolute upside is a top-5 defenceman in multi-cat leagues, and he's being paid as a top-5 defenceman. In fact, he's being paid as a top-3 defenceman. Even if he's an elite fantasy blue liner, he's breaking even or losing value. If he's anything other than elite, he's an anchor of a contract. Pour one out tonight to anyone that had him in cap dynasty leagues.

Outside of cap leagues, there are a lot of implications to both sides of this deal.

What Chicago gets

As with Rasmus Ristolainen, this is a player that divides the hockey community. There are many analysts who've seen Jones log 23-26 minutes a night for five years, has taken Norris votes in four of those, and doesn't turn 27 years old until October. If he ages like Ryan Suter, Duncan Keith, or Mark Giordano, he could easily be a very good for seven or eight years. The problem is where the divide comes in the community: his play-driving metrics are not strong.

Whether looking at places like Evolving Hockey or HockeyViz, the end result is the same: he doesn't help much offensively or defensively. Over the last three years in Columbus, he was nearly break-even in goals for/against when on the ice at 5-on-5 (149-147), which is actually good considering the team was a negative overall in that span (409-423). That is where I wonder if the split comes from. He is plus-2 on a team that was otherwise -26, and having positive results is nice to see. There was also John Tortorella, who was notorious for having players play his exact brand of hockey. Were Jones's skills put on display to their fullest potential in Chicago? I don't think so. He is clearly a talented hockey player who was maybe being asked to do things he's not naturally comfortable with. And being the hockey player he is, he just went along with it.

But that's the charitable side. We'd have to believe that years of average results on a decent team were the result of his coach or system. That is the big gamble from Chicago; that they can get him to become not only something better than he was, but something that is better than almost any other defenceman in the NHL. We'll see.

Assuming Jones goes right to the top PP unit, he does have big upside in non-cap leagues. We have seen two 40-point seasons, a 50-point season, and he paced out to a 44-point pace in 2019-20's shortened campaign. Only his 50-point season saw him crack 20 PPPs and he didn't have more than 10 in either of his 40-point seasons. Duncan Keith and Adam Boqvist had 14 last year combined, which works out to over 20 in a full season. If Jones gets to 20, he pushes past 50 points on a Chicago team that could have a lethal top-6. Jones has never struck me as a big power-play driver, but he doesn't need to be with Patrick Kane, Alex DeBrincat, and Jonathan Toews (hopefully) on the ice.

Assuming he plays a full year, we're looking at double-digit goals, 50 points, 20 PPPs, 200 shots, and maybe 275 hits+blocks. Again, in non-cap leagues, he's probably a top-10 multi-cat player. This is a big boost for him in the fantasy game, which needs to be separated from what we think about this trade in real terms.

What Columbus gets

The jury is still out on Boqvist. Which, let's give him a break here. He has played 76 regular season games, eight playoff games, and he doesn't turn 21 for a few weeks. The vast majority of NHLers don't have his résumé at his age. His play-driving metrics, at least offensively, have been good with the Blackhawks. There is something else that stood out to me when looking across some of his stats. Corey Sznajder's tracking data (Patreon here) had Boqvist as far-and-away the Blackhawks' leader in primary shot assists (passes that lead directly to a teammate's shot) per 60 minutes. No other defenceman on the team was league-average. His rate of 6.3 per 60 minutes was close to other d-men like Dougie Hamilton (6.2), Kris Letang (6.5), and Ryan Ellis (6.6). He wasn't among the elite in the league – Sam Girard's numbers are genuinely eye-popping – but he was well above-average in generating shots for his teammates, and he's still very young. If he's a comparable playmaker already to defencemen as those named, what is that skill going to look like in 3-4 years?

His problem, fantasy-wise, is he'll step into a situation where the team is rebuilding and Zach Werenski is still around. There may not be many top PP minutes to be had and even if he does get there, what kind of power play are they going to have? There are some talented guys like Bjorkstrand, Laine, Atkinson, and Roslovic, but their new coach needs to turn this team around offensively for Boqvist to be meaningful fantasy-wise. If he's not getting top PP minutes and the team is bottom-5 in scoring as they have been the last two years, well, there's not much fantasy upside. At least not right now.

That is the difference for the two defencemen here. Jones leaves a low-scoring situation where he was splitting PP duties, to one where the team has a lot of offensive talent and he should be the lock PP1 QB. On the other hand, Boqvist goes to the low-scoring team and has to contend with Werenski. And he's still just going into his age-21 season. This isn't a boost for him in the short-term, it's a downgrade.

I do wonder, however, about Boqvist's impact at 5-on-5. If he brings a different, more playmaker-type of hockey to the blue line than Jones did, can he immediately help the Jackets offensively? I think so. It may not be a lot, but he should help some of their scorers at even strength, even if he's not the same guy defensively as Jones. It also slams the door on anyone else in Chicago getting meaningful PP minutes.

Who this helps

Seth Jones

Zach Werenski

Chicago goaltending

Who this hurts

Nicolas Beaudin

Adam Boqvist