Blackhawks defenseman Trevor Van Riemsdyk was selected by the Vegas Golden Knights in Wednesday’s NHL Expansion Draft. There is already speculation that TVR will not make it to Vegas, that his ultimate destination will be Carolina in a trade.

Feelings about TVR around these parts have been quite mixed. There seems to not be many people in between on him. If you’re a loyal reader of Faxes From Uncle Dale like yours truly, you’ve been subjected to a lot of TVR grumblings, many of them valid. While on the other hand, many writers and fans really like his game.

The Hawks, as with every other team with this expansion draft, had to leave certain players unprotected. TVR was arguably the sexiest name on that list from a Vegas point of view. It was already reported that they were going to draft a lot of defensemen tonight, so it became no real surprise that TVR was going to be on the way out of Chicago.

In a summer where the Hawks’ biggest need is to hang on to cheap, developing players, they lose a cheap, young defenseman for absolutely nothing.

And that’s my biggest concern here. TVR being a steady, decent, young defenseman that the Hawks have now lost. We’ve talked all offseason about how the Blackhawks’ biggest need is to get younger and faster on defense. Well now they’ve lost one of their youngest D-men. Like him or not, it’s a tough pill to swallow to lose a young piece on defense that could eventually develop and grow. I think TVR is better than the body of work we’ve seen through most of him time in town.

Regardless of where he ends up, he’ll be slightly missed around here.

Vegas added some big names in the expansion draft like James Neal, Marc-Andre Fleury, Nick Schmidt, Eric Haula, David Perron, Reilly Smith, among others. The Knights selected Colorado goalie Calvin Pickard first overall.

The focus now turns to the plethora of trades that Vegas is reported to be making following this draft. We’re going to find out what the Hawks plan do with Kruger, especially with the new Hossa developments. All things were signaling a Kruger trade to the city of broken dreams and five dollar lobster. We’ll see what happens…

(Cover photo via Getty Images)