The Blackhawks acquired Brendan Perlini and Dylan Strome in a trade with the Coyotes in November, but Perlini didn’t make the impact Strome did. In fact, most seemed to write off Perlini until a March resurgence saw him emerge as a top-six goal scorer.
There’s no clear cut way of deciding whether Perlini helped or hindered the Blackhawks more this season. He’s the most complicated case on the roster, so below are the two arguments.
Perlini was good
The case Perlini was good is made most conclusively by what he did to the line he played most commonly with, being added to the duo of Strome and Alex DeBrincat.