While raving Wednesday about Sam Lafferty’s fantastic recent stretch, Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson made an eye-opening comparison.
“He’s starting to put the pieces together and really understand where he’s effective in the game with his speed and size,” Richardson said. “It’s unique. We had a guy like that in Montreal, Josh Anderson, and everybody in the league wants one of those guys. He’s starting to become that, and that’s great.”
The interesting thing about Anderson is he was the subject of one of the more memorable and ambitious trade-and-sign instances in recent NHL history.
With Lafferty, 27, attracting serious attention ahead of the trade deadline and skyrocketing up league-wide trade rankings, Hawks general manager Kyle Davidson would surely love to execute a similar maneuver.
In October 2020, Anderson was coming off a miserable final season with the Blue Jackets in which he tallied just four points in 26 games. Although terrible shooting luck was involved — and he had recorded 47 points in 82 games the year before — his value seemed fairly low.
But the Canadiens nonetheless gave up the sizable package of a third-round pick and (coincidentally) Max Domi to acquire him, then immediately signed him to a seven-year contract.
(In the three years since, Anderson has been decent but unremarkable, producing at a prorated 36-point pace. That’s not really relevant to this conversation, though.)
Lafferty’s current value realistically can’t quite match Anderson’s 2020 value. They are both hard-nosed players with great skating ability, but Anderson was two inches taller, one year younger and had proven his productivity over a much longer period.
Although Lafferty’s pace of 1.62 points per 60 minutes this season (17 points in 43 games) is close to Anderson’s pace of 1.68 during his Columbus tenure, Lafferty has never done anything like this before. He touts just 49 career points; Anderson touted 115 at that time.
Nonetheless, Lafferty probably could fetch a larger return than, say, Mason Appleton, who also had 17 points (in 49 games) when he was traded from the Kraken to Jets before last year’s deadline for a mere fourth-round pick. And Lafferty definitely would fetch a larger return than Alex Nylander, whom Davidson used to originally acquire him from the Penguins.
That’s because buzz really is building. Lafferty is No. 12 on the Daily Faceoff’s trade targets board, ahead of much bigger names like Philadelphia’s James van Riemsdyk and St. Louis’ Vladimir Tarasenko. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman recently called him the “most popular Blackhawk.”
And there is good reason: he brings far more than just moderate production. His speed has become truly game-breaking, almost rivaling Andreas Athanasiou at this point. He’s an excellent penalty-killer. He’s winning 53.6% of his faceoffs. And he has another year left on his contract with an extremely affordable $1.15 million salary-cap hit.
“The more aggressive a guy can play with that speed and size, it’s really hard to handle,” Richardson said. “Especially with the rules nowadays, you’re not allowed to hold [him] up. As a defenseman, if you see him coming, you’re concerned. And he can make a play with the puck and finish off things when you turn it over. He’s just being a dominant player right now, and we’re lucky to have him.”
Lafferty, for the record, said he loves Chicago and would “love to stay,” but he recognizes trades are “part of the business.”
It’s certainly possible he does stay, not only past March 3 but potentially long-term if he maintains this surge into and through next season. He does fit Davidson’s post-rebuild vision for a team predicated on speed and work ethic.
But he will turn 28 in March, and his sale value might never get higher than this. How the next few weeks play out will be fascinating.