The Winnipeg Jets and Chicago Blackhawks have completed a deal that will send defenseman Isaak Phillips to the Jets and defenseman Dmitry Kuzmin to the Blackhawks, according to TSN’s Darren Dreger.

The trade is mostly made on behalf the Blackhawks and Jets’ respective AHL affiliates, the Rockford IceHogs and Manitoba Moose. There isn’t a clear narrative to this trade, but the IceHogs get a defensemen who’s developing into a solid shutdown defender at the AHL level in Kuzmin, while the Moose get a player who is a couple years older, but also comes with more NHL upside with 56 games in the big leagues already in Phillips.

Phillips has played 3 games with the Blackhawks this season, with 1 goal in that brief stint with the team. He’s spent a majority of his season in the AHL with the IceHogs, where he has 1 goal and 7 assists for 8 points in 28 games.

Phillips was a fifth-round pick for the Blackhawks in the 2020 NHL Draft out of the OHL, making their AHL roster the following season with the OHL’s 2020-21 season being cancelled due to COVID-19 restrictions. It took Phillips just one year to make his NHL debut, as he achieved that early on in the 2021-22 season. He’s since spent the past four seasons between the NHL and AHL, with the 2023-24 season giving him the most NHL action with 33 games.

Phillips is currently signed to a one-year, $775,000 contract and will be a restricted free agent with arbitration rights at the end of the season.

Kuzmin has spent the entirety of the season in the AHL with the Moose, where he has 1 goal and 3 assists for 4 points in 21 games.

Kuzmin was a third-round pick for the Jets in the 2021 NHL Draft out of Belarus. After two seasons in the OHL, he graduated to the AHL in the 2023-24 season, and after spending the year between the AHL and ECHL, he’s secured an AHL role this season.

Kuzmin is currently in the second year of his three-year entry-level contract with a $795,556 cap hit.