For more than a year, the Blackhawks have attempted to trade winger Bryan Bickell, the one-time playoff hero who spent most of last season trying to rejuvenate his game in Rockford.

And for more than a year, the hockey world wondered just what it would cost the Hawks to move Bickell and get his $4 million annual salary-cap hit — an albatross around the franchise’s neck — off their books.

The cost was a big one, a player many thought would be with the franchise a long time — Teuvo Teravainen.

The Hawks dealt Bickell and Teravainen to the Hurricanes on Wednesday for a second-round pick in this year’s draft and a third-rounder in 2017.

With the move, general manager Stan Bowman created some cap space for next season but gave up Teravainen, a versatile 21-year-old forward who still has a lot of promise despite up-and-down play in his first season as a full-time NHL player.

“We’ve had to make difficult decisions in the past … it doesn’t always fit your puzzle,” Bowman said. “… Sometimes it takes moving players that people might be surprised at.”

The Hawks now have approximately $61 million in cap space tied up in 15 players for next season. The salary cap was $71.4 million last season. It’s still unclear if the cap will fall, stay flat or increase if the players’ union exercises an escalator clause.

The Hawks are looking to re-sign Andrew Shaw, who is a restricted free agent, and they want to extend Artemi Panarin, who has one year left on his rookie deal. Panarin earned $2.575 million in bonuses last season, most of which will count against this season’s cap. Trading Bickell gives the Hawks more room to maneuver around the cap.

“I realize everyone wants an answer (on Shaw), but it’s just too hard to make guesses at this point,” Bowman said. “… Once we figure out what the salary cap number is … we can put together a plan.

“I don’t know that you can have one plan. As things change you have to be able to react. It’s hard to predict what’s going to happen.”

Bickell said he was both relieved and excited about the move.

“Obviously the last year, asking for a trade and nothing came through … it’s nice to get this … for a new start,” he said in a phone interview.

The Hawks had the option of buying out Bickell’s contract and saving $3 million against the cap this season, according to generalfanger.com, but the buyout also would have added a cap hit of $1.5 million to the Hawks’ books in 2017-18.

Bickell signed his extension after helping the Hawks win a Stanley Cup in 2013 when he scored nine goals in the postseason, including the tying goal late in the third period of the clinching Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final against the Bruins. That performance earned him the four-year, $16 million extension that ended up costing the Hawks in their trade Wednesday.

Bickell had 11 goals during the 2013-14 season but picked up where he left off in the playoffs, scoring seven goals in 19 playoff games. But while he scored 14 goals in the 2014-15 season, he was nowhere to be found in the playoffs. Not helping matters was an eye condition Bickell developed during the Western Conference finals, a condition Bickell first thought was vertigo and plagued him into the start of last season, which he spent yo-yoing back and forth between the Hawks and Rockford. He did not score a goal in 25 games with the Hawks.

Bickell added he had no feelings of ill will toward the Hawks.

“It is part of the business,” he said. “You see a lot of good friends and a lot of good players go through it with the Hawks — (Brandon) Saad, (Patrick) Sharp, Johnny Oduya. Then you look in 2010 — (Dustin) Byfuglien, (Andrew) Ladd. You can go down the line.”

To help add to their forward depth, the Hawks signed Richard Panik on Wednesday. Panik, who came to the Hawks in a trade with the Maple Leafs for Jeremy Morin on Jan. 3, scored six goals in 30 games. And he comes at a price the Hawks like — $850,000, according to Sportsnet. Panik is the kind of player the Hawks need to fill out their roster given the large salaries of the Hawks’ top players.

As for Teravainen, who did not respond to requests for comment, his tenure ends before he could blossom into one of the franchise’s cornerstone players as was once thought.

Teravainen, a first-round pick in 2012, scored 13 goals and had 22 assists in his first full NHL season. While he did not light up the stat sheet as much as hoped, his ability to play every forward position on every line and his defensive awareness helped the Hawks make the playoffs last season.

He was also under contract for one more season at a cap hit (approximately $900,000) that would have helped the Hawks.

But to move Bickell, the Hawks had to give up something big. Like many before them, Bickell and Teravainen were pieces in overall cap strategy.

Chicago Tribune’s Michal Dwojak contributed.

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Twitter @ChristopherHine