(Author’s note: Bringing this series back for the 2025-26 season. It’s going to be a weekly exploration of whatever Hawks-related item is doing laps between my earlobes each week. Join the fun!)
I still have no idea if this whole Blackhawks rebuild is going to work.
And I feel like that’s where most people should reside in this moment. Predictions in sports are dumb and pointless because there are too many variables involved and any guesses mustered are barely educated and likely in a poor manner. It’s especially tricky when the calculus being done on the future is based on what’ll happen with a bunch of guys who are mostly in their early 20s, if not still teenagers. Ever ask someone that age where they expect to be in five or 10 years? They probably don’t know what they’re going to eat for dinner that night. Sometimes making no decision is the best decision.
But I do feel like I can confidently state that I’m not very optimistic about it as of this writing on Oct. 6, 2025. It’s a combination of items, mostly related to the insufficient amount of top-end talent at forward within the organization and the front office’s apparent reluctance to add talent from the outside seems like it’s going to add up to a team that may be decent at some point but never good enough to be a true, consistent contender. That’s all subject to change, of course. And a few guys playing outside of North America are offering early reasons for hope.
But this season does offer something that we haven’t really had since … 2007, maybe? Don’t think the abbreviated 2021 season quite counts because there were still a fair amount of veterans on that team. But the Chicago roster this season is loaded with players in their early 20s — or even late teens — who are all auditioning for long-term spots here, not just looking to boost their value in a potential trade come March. Connor Bedard is here and could be looking to take steps forward now. Frank Nazar will be here for all 82. So will Sam Rinzel and Wyatt Kaiser and Colton Dach and Alex Vlasic and Spencer Knight. We may get an 82-game look at Artyom Levshunov. Kevin Korchinski and Nolan Allan and Ryan Greene and Oliver Moore and Samuel Savoie could all have extended stints in Chicago. It’s likely that any positive results on the ice in the present will also offer positive signs in the future. The reverse of that is also true. But it’s an infinitely more interesting product on the ice this season than in years past. And, for now, that can suffice.
The Week That Was
Holding On
We’re about to take an extremely sharp turn off the road here, because events of the last week are prompting it. I get that this is hockey blog but when you’re writing about a hockey team who plays in a city where a bunch of masked goons armed to the gills are shooting civilians, throwing smoke canisters onto crowded streets outside of grocery stores, attacking nearby press and pointing guns in the faces of innocent civilians before ransacking their apartment units … it’s all just too much to ignore anymore. It’s an atypical time and it requires atypical reactions.
So, here’s what we’re going to do about that: for every goal the Blackhawks score this season, $1 will be donated to the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant & Refugee Rights, with a stated mission of being “dedicated to promoting the rights of immigrants and refugees to full and equal participation in the civic, cultural, social, and political life of our diverse society.” Pretty easy to see how important this organization is in the current climate, one that does not appear to be cooling any time soon. I’d encourage everyone here to visit the ICIRR website yourself and add your own donation or find a place of your own to send some money or time or whatever you have available.
I know, I know: you come here for sports. I do, too. But this is not a normal time right now, and there’s value in acknowledging that from a place that’s not directly affected by it. At some point, it is among those who aren’t the victims to look at those who are and decided complicity has been taken off the table.
Vesper Light
Seeing that Jonathan Toews is attempting a comeback in Winnipeg this season has had me thinking about his last game with the Hawks, an otherwise forgettable game during an otherwise forgettable season because the primary accomplishment was being bad enough to be entered into the lottery that they won to draft Connor Bedard. They lost — of course — but that result isn’t the point here. The postgame tribute video (with bonus Toews interview, if you’re so inclined to watch) is the point here.
Was fortunate enough to be in the building that night, sitting alongside Eric as we took in Toews’ final minutes in Chicago. The montage at the start of the clip above is what sticks with me most from that night, because as my eyes took in the moments from Toews’ career, my mind went through a catalog of my own life. That initial highlight-reel goal against Colorado? I was home from college and missed the game initially while watching a sibling’s high school football game, so I caught the highlight later and watched it at least 15 times, mostly in disbelief. The first Cup in 2010? Had just graduated college and was doing a whole lot of nothing. The 2013 Cup? I’d finally moved out of my parents house and watched that with the beer league team I’d met just a few years prior. The 2015 Cup? With family both immediate and extended from our vacation spot in Minnesota. And on and on it went, watching Toews slowly morph from a fresh-faced teenager into a fully grown adult as it dawned on me that I’d done the same thing in the years that montage covered.
I mention all of that to wonder … what am I going to feel when we’re watching Connor Bedard’s career montage in 2040?
The Week That Will Be
Tuesday, Oct. 7: at Florida Panthers
A Florida three-peat would be infinitely more impressive than either of their first two Cup wins, given the Barkov injury, among other things.
Thursday, Oct. 9: at Boston Bruins
Boston probably isn’t as bad as it was last season but … it also doesn’t seem like it’s going to be anything more than an afterthought in the East this season.
Saturday, Oct. 11 vs. Montreal Canadiens
Will both Dach brothers make it to this game intact?
Monday, Oct. 13 vs. Utah Mammoth
It’ll take at least six months before it settles in that “Utah Mammoth” is the name of a real-life NHL team.