(Hello, this is a feature that will run through the entire season and aims to recap the weekend’s events and boils those events down to one admittedly superficial fact or stupid opinion about each team. Feel free to complain about it.)

The Kevin Hayes situation that went into effect this weekend brought to light a particularly troubling sentiment among Blackhawks fans in particular.

The idea, basically, is that Hayes is a “prima donna” and “selfish” and somehow bad because he decided he did not want to sign with the team that drafted him four years ago, and would instead hit the open market starting on Saturday. As of this writing, he has not made a decision about which team he will sign with.

There was further a lot of confusion about why he would make such a decision. Would he not want to play for a team that gave him the best chance to win a Stanley Cup? Would he not want to show some sort of fealty to the team that drafted him four years ago? Is he really only about the money?

These are all very complicated questions, but the simple answers to them are, respectively: “Apparently not,” “Why should he have to,” and “Why wouldn't he be?”

It's a funny thing about sports. Fans acknowledge, always, that it's a business first and foremost, but simultaneously demand a loyalty from players who are, at the end of the day, simply paid employees. And the thing is, too, that this both is and is not about money simultaneously. If Hayes's biggest consideration here is money (which it might not be), then one has to keep in mind that he can't go sign a $5 million deal somewhere and play for the highest bidder. He's still governed by rookie maximums and other aspects of the current collective bargaining agreement, and thus a team like Calgary couldn't actually pay him more than Chicago could have.

But the difference, though, is that Calgary or Colorado, or maybe even Boston, can offer him something that Chicago cannot: An NHL roster spot, or at least the chance to earn one. That, of course, translates to more money because in the NHL you can make 10 or even 20 times your AHL salary.

For instance, if Anaheim had sent Sami Vatanen had down to the AHL last season, he would have made just $67,500 to ride the bus (plus his signing bonus). But instead he was with the NHL club and pulled $900,000, plus the chance for up to $425,000 in performance bonuses, plus his signing bonus. And thus, playing in the NHL was a very, very good financial move, in addition to being positive for his career a a hockey player.

So why would anyone begrudge Hayes the ability to do so by the same token? As has been discussed, Chicago's deep down the right side, with a lot of wings from that side on one-way contracts, and well established in the organization. He was not, and would have had a tough time convincing the team to effectively bury Kris Versteeg's $2.2 million cap hit just so he could get a crack at the roster. So he started looking elsewhere; it should come as no shock, then, that Hayes's various rumored destinations have a paucity of natural, effective right wings at present. That's good not only for his wallet, but for his sense of himself as a hockey player. Playing at the highest level possible in a situation that's as perfect for him as it can be is, you'd think, the goal of any professional athlete.

And further, it's not like Hayes broke any rules here. Chicago fans are going to feel hard done by, but the reason he was able to start negotiating with everyone was because he's allowed to do that under the terms of the CBA. If any drafted college player wants to wait all four years (or, in Justin Schultz's case, fewer than that because he was drafted out of junior but played another year there before going on to Wisconsin), then he's within his rights to wait it out. Hayes isn't the first person to do it and he won't be the last.

Hayes does not, in fact, owe anything to the Blackhawks for drafting him. Just as Schultz didn't to the Ducks, or Blake Wheeler to the Coyotes. All are, like any other professional athlete, guys who have a very limited number of years in which to make a lot of money before their bodies give out or they get left behind. If guys are even lucky enough to make it that far, the average NHL career is about five and a half years. You therefore have to make as much money as possible while you can.