Blackhawks name their price for defenseman Jake McCabe.

The Chicago Blackhawks have been in the middle of what I can only describe as a full on tank this season, so it will come as no surprise to anyone reading this that the Blackhawks are expected to be sellers at the deadline.

While most of the talk surrounding the Blackhawks ahead of the National Hockey League's trade deadline in early March has been focused on star forwards Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane, there are other assets on the Blackhawks roster that contending teams from around the league may be interested in.

Case in point, it appears as though the Blackhawks have let those teams know their asking price when it comes to veteran defenseman Jake McCabe. On Saturday, NHL insider Pierre LeBrun reported that the Blackhawks' asking price begins at a first round pick, with LeBrun indicating that the Blackhawks may be looking to get creative to maximize that return.

McCabe is an attractive trade target given that he has a reasonable cap hit of $4 million per season, but he will be slightly more expensive that your average rental because he also has 2 years remaining on his contract beyond this current season. Making this even more intriguing though is the fact that LeBrun is reporting that the Blackhawks would be willing to retain salary here for the right package. This means that a team could get 3 seasons of McCabe at a very reasonable cap hit of $2 million in this trade, should the Blackhawks retain 50% of McCabe's salary. It's easy to see why this potential trade would be appealing to a cap-strapped Stanley Cup contender, even when factoring in the high asking price.

McCabe is your classic stay-at-home type of shutdown defenseman and that is exactly the kind of player that coaches want come the Stanley Cup playoffs. I suspect that there will be a number of suitors for McCabe here in spite of the high asking price, especially if Chicago retains salary in the transaction.