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GLENDALE, Ariz. –– Antoine Vermette won’t be flashing his Stanley Cup championship ring when the Chicago Blackhawks come to town for a Tuesday meeting with the Coyotes at Gila River Arena, but Vermette will be flashing plenty of smiles for his former teammates.

“Every time you play a team you played for it’s always special,” said the Coyotes center, who won a Stanley Cup with the Blackhawks last season. “Even more so when you have a chance to do it and win it all with some of these guys. You share something with these guys that’s going to last long.”

Vermette went from being a first-line center in Arizona to a bottom-six forward on Chicago’s 2015 championship team after the Coyotes dealt him at the trade deadline for defenseman Klas Dahlbeck and Chicago’s 2015 first-round pick (Nick Merkley). It was a clear illustration of the skill differential between these two teams.

Even though Chicago declined to bring Vermette back and lost 10 players from last season’s playoff roster, mostly due to salary cap constraints, Vermette said the Blackhawks are still serious Cup contenders.

“They’ve always been a contender,” he said. “They find a way to stay competitive throughout the years even though they’ve won and they have some restrictions with (the) cap. They find a way to manage and keep their key guys, their core group.”

Chicago’s scouting department has done a masterful job of evaluating talent over the past decade, allowing the team to replace good players while maintaining a championship caliber team. While the Hawks lost key contributors such as forwards Patrick Sharp, Brandon Saad and defenseman Johnny Oduya this offseason, they still have forwards Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Marian Hossa, defensemen Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook, Niklas Hjalmarsson and underappreciated goalie Corey Crawford. They also added center Artem Anisimov (12 goals, 19 points) and early rookie-of-the-year favorite Artemi Panarin (10 goals, 31 points).

By doing so, Chicago is in the thick of the playoff and Cup chases once again while a bunch of former Hawks are helping push their squads into similar situations.

Vermette is one of a growing list of still-talented ex-Hawks that Chicago faces as it makes its yearly treks across the NHL map. That got us thinking about what a team of former Blackhawks, but still effective NHL players might look like.

Here is the team we have assembled. One thing that jumps out is how thin the team is at center. Since a diminished Dave Bolland departed, the Hawks had been looking for a second-line caliber center before landing Anisimov (and Marko Dano, among others) in the Saad trade this summer.

The former Hawks are particularly strong on the wing, which you’d expect since those are the first players any GM is normally going to let go, reasoning that you build your team on up the middle, on the blue line and in goal.

What is surprising is how strong the top of the blue line would look, before it falls off dramatically, much like the Hawks’ current roster. Chicago would dearly love to have Nick Leddy or Oduya back. On this roster, the team is heavy in left-handed defenseman so we’ve moved Oduya to the right side to compensate.

TEAM EX-HAWK

First line

LW Brandon Saad; C Antoine Vermette; RW Dustin Byfuglien

Second line

LW Andrew Ladd; C Brad Richards; RW Patrick Sharp

Third line

LW Michael Frolik; C Brandon Pirri; RW Kris Versteeg

Fourth line

LW Viktor Stalberg; C Ben Smith; RW Troy Brouwer

Extras

Jimmy Hayes, Joakim Nordstrom

Top D pairing

LD Nick Leddy; RD Johnny Oduya

2nd D pairing

LD Brian Campbell; RD Adam Clendening

3rd D pairing

LD Klas Dahlbeck; RD Stephen Johns

Extra

Dylan Olsen

Goalies

Antti Niemi

Antti Raanta

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