The Chicago Blackhawks might as well aim for another lottery draft pick next season, writes Adam Proteau. They won big in doing so this year.
With the NHL 2022-23 season over and done, it’s time to look at every team’s 2023 off-season and the 2023-24 regular season. We’ve been going alphabetically, team by team, and discussing their 2022-23 season’s highs and lows, in addition to what’s ahead for next season. Today’s team is the crazy like-a-fox Chicago Blackhawks:
2022-23 Grade: A+
Biggest Positive Heading Into the Off-Season
After seeing our grade above, you might be saying, “Really? A team that was the NHL’s second-worst in standings points last season gets an ‘A’?!?!”
To which, we say, “Yes, it was worth the cartoonishly bad lineup and the league-worst 49 regulation-time defeats. It resulted in the Hawks winning the NHL draft lottery and winning the privilege of selecting junior phenom Connor Bedard with the No. 1 pick this summer.”
It really is that easy, and it really is that clear to anyone who’s seen a few minutes of Bedard highlights. This is a player who thinks the game the way very few players do, let alone a player as young as Bedard is.
The Blackhawks officially ended an era at the end of 2022-23 when they bid farewell to captain Jonathan Toews and star winger Patrick Kane, but the willingness of Hawks ownership and management to tear it all down and go full tank mode ended up with this result.
This is why it’s so amusing to see NHL commissioner Gary Bettman try and argue that tanking doesn’t go happen in hockey’s top league. Chicago’s terrible lineup was tanking at its finest and the latest example of how the league rewards teams for being bad. You don’t always get a top pick regardless of how bad you finish the season, but one thing is clear – by being not bad, or at worst, mediocre, you all but guarantee you’ll never draft a generational talent. Bedard is going to light up the Windy City for a decade or longer, and there’s no positive more positive than that for the Hawks entering the 2023-24 campaign.
Biggest Need Heading Into the Off-Season
How does “everything” sound regarding their needs in 2023-24?
Although the Blackhawks now have a franchise superstar to build around, the rest of their roster needs serious and sustained work.
At forward, Chicago’s projected top line at the moment of Tyler Johnson, Jason Dickinson and Andreas Athanasiou hardly strikes fear in the hearts of opponents. Similarly, the Hawks’ defense corps is, aside from star D-man Seth Jones, easily panicked, lightly skilled and prone to error.
Finally, Chicago’s goaltending situation – currently made up of journeyman Petr Mrazek and youngster Arvid Soderblom – will take the team nowhere fast. But that’s probably part of management’s plan here.
Even after Bedard’s arrival, the Blackhawks need to add a few high-end pieces that they’ll very likely have to get through top draft picks. That means, again this coming season, and most likely for a year or two thereafter, Chicago needs to be subpar on the ice.
Bottom Line for Them This Off-Season
For as bad as the Hawks were in 2022-23, there aren’t very many NHL GMs who wouldn’t trade places with Chicago, simply because Bedard looks to be an all-time-great potential force for the Hawks. The Blackhawks’ marketing now can move toward the days and years ahead, as opposed to looking back on the recent glory days of the franchise.
But Chicago GM Kyle Davidson has mapped out where his team will have to be in the coming years, and our guess is that his team will have to be at or near the basement of the league yet again in 2023-24. Bedard can only do so much, and it would be unfair to expect him to singlehandedly lead the Hawks to the post-season for the first time in the past four years.
No, the rebuild in Chicago will take much more time than that. Let’s remember the Blackhawks finished 36 points out of the final wild-card playoff berth in the Western Conference last season. That’s 18 wins they’d need to make up to become a post-season team this coming year. Not happening. And if it isn’t happening, it makes sense for the Blackhawks to remain at or near the bottom of the West.
They might not get another first overall pick, but they’re more likely to land another terrific young player to use alongside Bedard for the next dozen years or more. Davidson knows this to be true, and he’s got the patience to live with subpar results for a couple more seasons.
The best days aren’t close ahead for the Hawks, but they are visible on the horizon. It’s now about the stones to wait out the growth process, and we think Chicago brass has them.