The Chicago Blackhawks have the third-youngest team to kick off the 2025-26 NHL season. This is largely due to many of the drafted and developed talent over the past number of years coming to fruition.
Chicago's average age is 26.49, with only the Montreal Canadiens (25.8) and the Buffalo Sabres (26.48) being younger. To round out the top-5, the Philadelphia Flyers have an average age of 27.1 and the Columbus Blue Jackets have an average age of 27.57.
The team is still very young, considering the Blackhawks made a couple of veteran additions in Andre Burakovsky, Sam Lafferty, and Matt Grzelcyk, but also saw Alec Martinez and Pat Maroon retire, as well as see T.J. Brodie be bought out.
A big difference is on defense. There were eight defensemen on the roster to start the season before Ethan Del Mastro was just sent down. This group included Alex Vlasic (24 years old), Sam Rinzel (21), Wyatt Kaiser (23), Louis Crevier (24), Artyom Levshunov (20), Del Mastro (22), Connor Murphy (32), and Grzelcyk (31).
This group can and likely will look a lot younger by the trade deadline, with Murphy and Grzelcyk both being UFAs on a probable seller. This would see two of Del Mastro, Kevin Korchinski (21), and Nolan Allan (22) be called up in their place.
The goaltending is an average age of 25, which is very young and rare. Spencer Knight and Arvid Soderblom have played well thus far despite no wins.
The forward group could be younger and will be by the trade deadline as well, but Oliver Moore (20) didn't make the team and Ryan Greene (22) was cut in training camp before being recalled in place of the injured Jason Dickinson. There is some youth on every line though. Connor Bedard (20) and Colton Dach (22) are on the top line, Frank Nazar (21) is centering the second line, Greene is playing third line center, and Lukas Reichel (23) drew into the lineup on the fourth line, even though many await him being traded. Pulling down the age as well was Landon Slaggert (23), who is now injured.
Not only do the many young players on a rebuilding team like the Blackhawks pull down the average age of the team, but the veterans being younger on average is different than many teams around the NHL. All of the veterans, other than Nick Foligno (37) and Murphy (32), are aged 30-31. This includes Burakovsky, Tuevo Teravainen, Tyler Bertuzzi, Ilya Mikheyev, Lafferty, Dickinson, and Grzelcyk.
Kyle Davidson has done a nice job finding the middle ground between a very young team that doesn't have enough veteran leadership and experience and too old a team where the young players don't get enough of a chance to properly develop in the NHL. There will be trades, mostly involving the veterans, and there should be some offseason additions next year, but the team won't get younger, rather a little bit older and one step closer to climbing into the playoffs.
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