2023-24 NHL team preview: Chicago Blackhawks
Last Season
The 2022-23 season went about as expected for the Chicago Blackhawks. They finished 30th in the NHL with a 26-49-7 record, along with the third-best odds to land the first overall pick in the 2023 NHL Draft. On the ice, the Blackhawks didn’t have much going for them. They were consistently near the bottom of the league all year and missed the playoffs for the third-straight season, tanking to perfection.
In terms of positives, the 2022-23 season saw the continued emergence of Taylor Raddysh as a legitimate NHL scoring forward as well as a very solid late-season NHL stint from prospect Lukas Reichel. But aside from that it was more or less a season to forget for a team that had grown accustomed to long playoff runs. That all changed at the draft when they selected teenage phenom Connor Bedard with the first overall pick. Suddenly, a team that was in the throes of a long rebuild could see light at the end of the tunnel.
Key Additions and Departures
Additions
Connor Bedard, C
Ryan Donato, C
Nick Foligno, LW
Taylor Hall, LW
Corey Perry, W
Departures:
Jonathan Toews, C, (UFA)
Alex Stalock, G (Ana)
Caleb Jones, D (Car)
Ian Mitchell, D (Bos)
Alec Regula, D (Bos)
Jujhar Khaira, C (UFA)
Anders Bjork, LW (AHL)
Anton Khudobin, G (UFA)
Offense
The Blackhawks ranked dead last in the NHL last year in goal scoring, averaging 2.46 per game. That stat came as no surprise as the best offensive player on the team was Andreas Athanasiou who is little more than a speedy middle-six winger. Chicago has made the transition from the Patrick Kane/Jonathan Toews era to the Connor Bedard era, and part of getting there involved bottoming out with a punchless, stripped down roster.
However, the Blackhawks should take a step forward in goal scoring this year as they have made significant improvements in that regard. The additions of Corey Perry, Nick Foligno, Taylor Hall, Ryan Donato, and of course Bedard should cause an uptick in scoring. Couple that with an extra year of development for Reichel and Philipp Kurashev and they should also help out a bit on the offensive side.
During the 2022-23 season, the Blackhawks traded some key players away for draft picks including Kane, Max Domi, Jake McCabe and Sam Lafferty. They are now embracing a full youth movement, with the veteran acquisitions as insurance and insulation.
Defense
The Blackhawks’ D-corps this year is led by Seth Jones and Connor Murphy. The two veterans will be the mainstays on the back-end and eat up the bulk of ice time. As they are both right-handed defensemen, it’s unlikely they’ll ever play on the same pairing, which means they will each be paired with an inexperienced left-shot defenseman.
Among the left-handed defensemen who could play in Chicago this year are Kevin Korchinski, Alex Vlasic, Wyatt Kaiser, and Filip Roos. While that is a superb prospect pipeline, none of these players has any significant NHL playing experience. The only veteran left-handed defenseman on the team is the towering Jarred Tinordi. He is not a top-four defenseman but could be useful in a limited role on the third-pairing or be forced to play on higher in the lineup. That means the Blackhawks have two options ahead of them:
One option is to go out and acquire a veteran left-handed defenseman between now and the start of the season in a couple of months. The other option is to lean on their rookie defensemen all season. The elite prospect Korchinski would obviously be the most intriguing choice if he can show enough in camp to stick with the club. The Hawks can also dust off Nikita Zaitsev on the right side. He was acquired from the Ottawa Senators in a cap dump deal. At this point in his career, he’s nothing more than a third-pairing option.
While the right side is all but set with Jones, Murphy, and Zaitsev nailing down those three spots, the left side feels wide open.
Goaltending
The Blackhawks’ starting goalie going into the 2023-24 season is Petr Mrazek. A veteran with 334 games of NHL experience, he will be expected to carry the load all year. Backing him up will likely be Arvid Soderblom who struggled in the NHL last season. The loss of Alex Stalock in free agency is a big deal for Chicago and will hurt them at a position that they can’t get much worse in. The Blackhawks finished 28th in the NHL in goals against last year and they probably won’t improve much on that this season.
That said, they know who Mrazek is at this point of his career, whereas Soderblom at least has conceivable upside to tap into. He’s still just 24 and has a respectable AHL track record. Why not see what they have in him and give him a chance to wrest the 1A job from Mrazek?
Coaching
Luke Richardson will be behind the bench in Chicago for his second season as an NHL head coach. Like last year, the emphasis won’t be on wins and losses, rather how they develop the prospects and young players. Richardson has a good reputation as a player’s coach and will work to build a team identity around the young talent that the team has compiled over the rebuild.
His biggest challenge will be ensuring the team develops Bedard properly and that he doesn’t have to go up against the league’s best lines every night. Richardson will be focused on slowly pointing the team in the right direction and emphasising that Rome does not have to be built in one day.
Rookies
All eyes will be on generational talent Bedard this year. He has proven everything he can possibly prove at the junior level and on the international stage. Now all that’s left for him is to prove that he can be an impactful player at the NHL level. He is expected to be one of the best players on the team off the bat and could very well lead the Blackhawks in all offensive categories as a rookie. It would qualify as a mild surprise if he didn’t.
He is the betting favorite to win the Calder Trophy for the league’s best rookie this season. However, he will have to compete with Logan Cooley, Luke Hughes, Adam Fantilli, Leo Carlsson, and Shane Wright for the award.
Bedard isn’t the only rookie who could put on a show this year in Chicago. Korchinski, Vlasic, and Kaiser are all defensemen who could earn full-time roles on the back end and have the talent to be impactful rookies.
Burning Questions
1. What can Bedard do in his rookie season? Few players in the history of the game have been hyped up as much as Bedard has been over the last couple of years. Most view Bedard as a sure-fire superstar in the making. But all that hype is coming before Bedard actually plays in the NHL. One of the big questions facing the franchise is exactly what is Bedard capable of in the NHL as a rookie? Will he be an instant star or take time to find his footing?
2: Can the defense hold up? It’s no secret the Blackhawks have one of the worst bluelines in the NHL. The onus will be on Seth Jones and Connor Murphy to salvage as much of the season as possible for the team. With Murphy as a possible trade-chip at the trade deadline, Jones might end up being the only capable top-four defenseman left on the team to go up against the best competition in the league.
3. Will Lukas Reichel take a leap? He was a dominant player at the AHL level over the past few seasons, piling up 108 points in 111 games, and thus has nothing left to accomplish there. He looked like an NHLer in his 23-game taste last season, compiling seven goals and 15 points in 23 games. Can Reichel become a go-to scorer for Chicago in what should be his first full season in the NHL? Will Richardson shoehorn him onto Bedard’s line or have Reichel drive his own?
Prediction
It would be a shock if the Blackhawks find themselves anywhere but the bottom five of the league at the end of the season. This team will not get close to the playoffs at any point this year and will be lucky to finish with more than 30 wins. However, that doesn’t mean there are no storylines to watch in Chicago this year. Buckle up for the Bedard show. It’ll be memorable. The goal of this season is to develop the younger members of the organization into full-time NHL players and to finish at the bottom of the standings. One first overall pick was great. Why not contend for another? The rebuild is only just beginning, after all.
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