Down and Out: The future of the Chicago Blackhawks

The Chicago Blackhawks had big aspirations to return to their winning ways of the early 2010s, bringing in Seth Jones, Marc-Andre Fleury, and Tyler Johnson before the season and welcoming back captain Jonathan Toews after a one-year illness layoff.

But as good as they may have looked on paper, things did not go well in practice. A nine-game losing streak to start the season doesn’t help your team on the ice, but there were even bigger problems off the ice. The Kyle Beach allegations were a dark mark on the organization, resulting in long-time general manager Stan Bowman leaving as well. It was a season you’d want to forget if you’re the Blackhawks, but hopefully they don’t and learn from their mistakes.

Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk continued the Down and Out series on The Daily Faceoff Show to talk about the Blackhawks season.

Frank Seravalli: I hope Kyle Davidson, their new general manager, brings a shovel with him, because they’ve got a lot of digging to do in terms of getting out from the spot that they’re in. You’ve heard it right from Kyle Davidson’s lips, this is going to be a total rebuild for the Chicago Blackhawks. That means there’s going to be a lengthy teardown process as well to get to the point where they want to get to.

The real key for me is the Chicago Blackhawks really lack difference-makers. That should be their No. 1 goal and target: how do we find a way to get and acquire and accumulate enough difference-makers in their lineup? They’ve got a couple, Patrick Kane is one of course and is always going to be one.

They need to recoup some picks too. You take a look at this board here, they don’t have a first-round pick this year, of course from the Seth Jones trade going back a year. You look at the picks that they got for Brandon Hagel, valuable picks, but they’re in the future. They’ve sort of begun that process already, trading away Hagel, recouping a second-round pick, a conditional pick for Marc-Andre Fleury, but they’ve got a lot more work to do.

I think the big question for me is “Who are the guys that are going to be the pillars for the future?” You thought back to the Blackhawks and their Stanley Cup run, and they had their pillars at every position. It was Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane up front, it was Brent Seabrook and Duncan Keith on the back end, and then they had Corey Crawford in net, and so they built around those five pillars. Who are going to be the guys left standing this time around? I really wonder about Patrick Kane. I think that’s going to be a fascinating offseason conversation. I wonder if Jonathan Toews, given his comments, is trending towards playing somewhere else next season.

Then you think about the young guys that are left. The guy that I think they’re going to be building around in the future, and the guy that Kyle Davidson has had circled on his list, is Kirby Dach. I think he’s the guy that’s going to be right up there in terms of leading the charge.

Tyler Yaremchuk: It’ll be interesting. You mentioned Patrick Kane. There’s the lack of draft picks, and there’s the need for them to have difference-makers. Well, Patrick Kane is a difference-maker, but Patrick Kane could get them a lot of draft picks, and he’s only got one year left on that deal at $10.5 million. To me, what they do with Kane will really signal which direction this franchise is going, right?

Frank Seravalli: I think we know which direction it’s going, it’s just do they view Kane as part of the solution moving forward. And notice some of the names that I didn’t mention. Alex DeBrincat, you saw the stats sheet, 40 goals this season. I think he’s going to be a prime trade target in the summer.

You can watch the full episode here…