By adding Fitzpatrick, the Hawks now have four goalies. They probably will keep only two, and Andrei Trefilov likely will not be one of them.
So, the question is whether Fitzpatrick will be here long enough to unpack, or whether it is Chris Terreri, or even starter Jeff Hackett, the Hawks have ticketed for elsewhere.
It could be Hackett is too good a commodity not to trade because the Hawks have few other players who can command as much value in return.
Hackett was among the league leaders in shutouts (eight) and save percentage (.917) last season. And he is a bargain at the $900,000 a season he is to be paid each of the next two years.
Edmonton, Montreal and Florida all are looking for goaltenders. If the Hawks can come up with an attractive enough package, they could land a player such as Ryan Smith, a talented young left wing with the Oilers; center Vincent Damphousse of the Canadiens, or defenseman Ed Jovanovski of the Panthers.
Either Hackett, Terreri or Fitzpatrick probably will be combined with another player or two--perhaps Ethan Moreau, Alex Zhamnov or Bob Probert--in order to land the scoring forward or defenseman general manager Bob Murray said the Blackhawks still need.
Fitzpatrick, a 10-year NHL veteran, has a 3.14 career goals-against average and 10 shutouts.
The Hawks also obtained a fourth-round 1999 draft pick from the Lightning.
Sykora, 6-4 and 230 pounds, played 56 games with the Hawks during the last 1 1/2 seasons, scoring two goals and adding 12 assists with 22 penalty minutes. The Hawks never seemed to warm up to Sykora since he came to the team as part of the Ed Belfour trade with San Jose on Jan. 25, 1997.