Hockey analytics pioneer Rob Vollman is ESPN Insider's armchair GM this season, exploring how modern statistics can inform front-office decisions.
When Chicago coach Joel Quenneville took over for Denis Savard five games in the 2008-09 season, he inherited a roster with two incredibly skilled 20-year-old forwards. Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane are so talented that they would have been effective in whichever roles Quenneville crafted for them, but it's impossible to argue against the results of splitting them up. Toews became one of the league's top shutdown players, while Kane is one of the most dangerous offensive weapons.
How these two superstars evolved to complement each other and help the Blackhawks win multiple championships is not only a model for the rest of the league to emulate but also one to monitor closely over the next eight years, now that they're both locked into record-setting new contracts.