A few years ago, we asked a simple question that remains unanswered: How long is this rebuild going to take? That initial article above detailed the best-case scenarios. Another article from a few days later explored some other timelines.
With a few more years of data to add to the calculations, has anything changed for the Blackhawks rebuild timeline?
The short answer: probably not as much as you would think — or hope — even with a player like Connor Bedard in the fold.
We’re going to use the 2019 draft as the start of the clock for this current rebuild, since the first piece of the present foundation being built was picked in that summer’s draft: defenseman Alex Vlasic. Some may try and point to 2018’s selection of Philipp Kurashev as the real start but we’re not going to do that because Kurashev’s role in this whole thing isn’t going to be as substantial as other clock-starting selections detailed below.
The goal here is long-term success, so we’re going to take the current timeline and compare it to the other teams that have enjoyed real-long term NHL success in the last few decades to see what we’ve learned from the early portions of this process.
Chicago Blackhawks
The Blackhawks dynastic teams of the 2010s took flight on the drafting of Jonathan Toews in 2006 and Patrick Kane in 2007 but the foundation was being assembled as far back as 2002’s drafting of Duncan Keith prior to first reaching the postseason in 2009 and hoisting the Cup in 2010.
The present-day Hawks seem to be lagging behind this pace because the prior Hawks dynasty also had key pieces drafted in 2003 (Crawford, Seabrook, Byfuglien), 2004 (Bolland, Bickell, Brouwer) and 2005 (Hjalmarsson). All we have from comparative draft classes this time around (that’d be 2020, 2021 and 2022) are question marks with plenty of boom-or-bust potential remaining. Still, it’s increasingly difficult to see this era of Blackhawks hockey competing for a Cup in 2027 unless a whole bunch of things start going very right starting with the upcoming season (which should also offer some insight into how much of an outlier that era was overall).
Tampa Bay Lightning
Tampa Bay’s run of the last decade started with the 2007 drafting of Alex Killorn in the third round but really took off with the next two drafts, highlighted by Steven Stamkos in 2008 and Victor Hedman in 2009. It also benefitted from 2011’s drafting of Nikita Kucherov in the second round and Ondrej Palat in the seventh round along with the undrafted free-agent signing of Tyler Johnson in March 2011. Tampa reached a Cup final in 2015 and the window of contention remained open until they won back-to-back Cups in 2020 and 2021.
Eight years from the start of the rebuild until arrival in a Cup final — anyone remember who beat them? — and a full 13 until the Cup was won, with the window aided by Kucherov going from a second-round pick to a probable Hall of Fame selection. That window stayed open because Tampa kept drafting well, too: adding Andrey Vasilevskiy in the first round in 2012, Brayden Point in the third round in 2013 and Anthony Cirelli in the third round in 2015, among others.
Overall, though, feels like the Blackhawks are probably closer to that 13 than the 8 unless a second-round pick currently in the system suddenly takes off on a Kucherov-esque career arc.
Pittsburgh Penguins
Pittsburgh nabbed three straight Hall-of-Fame players in 2003 (Fleury), 2004 (Malkin) and Crosby (2005) before reaching the Cup final in 2008 and winning it in 2009. But players who played significant roles on those teams arrived as soon as 1999 with the selection of Ryan Malone.
Like the Chicago team above, the drafts in the years following the start of the clock were key. Back-to-back first-round picks of Brooks Orpik and Colby Armstrong provided key contributors for future Penguins teams, along with 2002’s addition of Ryan Whitney in the first and Maxime Talbot in the eighth. If some of Chicago’s current prospects hit in similar fashion, perhaps Cup contention is awaiting this team in latter parts of the decade. Feels like the “perhaps” is doing some awfully heavy lifting, though.
Los Angeles Kings
The Kings nabbed Cups in 2012 and 2014 and began assembling those elite rosters as soon as 2003, when they drafted Dustin Brown. Anze Kopitar and Jonathan Quick were picked in 2005 with Drew Doughty selected in 2008. Another timeline of roughly nine years altogether, aided by selections outside of the first round like Alec Martinez (2007, fourth round), Dwight King (2007, fourth round), Slava Voynov (2008, second round). LA also turned prospect Wayne Simmonds (a 2007 second-round pick) into top-six forward Mike Richards with a 2011 trade.
It was a nine-year process for this team with selections in the first round and beyond building the core of the roster, supplemented by some shrewd moves in trades and free agency. Seems like it’ll require a significant amount of the latter to get the Hawks into Cup contention in the same timeframe (that’d be 2028, by the way).
Florida Panthers
We’ll throw the most recent Cup champs in here as an additional data point, because they’ve been among the league’s elite for several seasons prior to hoisting Stanley last summer. Florida drafted Aleksander Barkov No. 2 overall in 2013 and Aaron Ekblad No. 1 overall in 2014, securing the top center and top defenseman for the next decade-plus of the franchise. Outside of that, though, Florida didn’t draft all that well, which might explain why it took 11 years from Barkov’s arrival for the Panthers to summit Mount Stanley. The only other draft pick that played a key role in Florida’s Cup run last season was 2020 first-rounder (12th overall) Anton Lundell. Virtually ever other piece arrived via trade (Sam Reinhart, Matthew Tkachuk, Sam Bennett, Brandon Montour) or free agency (Sergei Bobrovsky, Carter Verhaeghe, Evan Rodrigues) or waivers ( … sigh … Gustav Forsling).
The current Blackhawks regime has seemed extremely hesitant to make any hockey moves outside the organization in recent years, so it’s hard to draw much comparison here. But if Barkov and Ekblad are to Florida what Bedard and Levshunov are to Chicago, perhaps some shrewd acquisitions over the next few seasons can make up for any failures in draft quality. But that feels like an extremely volatile tightrope to walk.
Don’t bore us, get to the chorus
There are still so many unknowns with the Blackhawks current crop of prospects that it’s hard to pinpoint a specific year when this team could be back in Cup contention. Outside of Bedard and Vlasic, though, it’s hard to say that any prospects have taken the kind of monumental steps forward that shorten the clock on a rebuild. Because of that, it’s getting harder to envision any sort of best-case scenario unfolding at the moment, which would place the rebuild timeline at eight or nine years resulting in a Stanley Cup return trip to Chicago in 2027 or 2028. The most optimistic viewpoint towards that aim would have the Blackhawks landing another top-six forward in the 2025 NHL Draft who immediately jumps to the NHL and combines forces with other prospects like Levshunov, Korchinski, Nazar, Moore, Allan and more to hit the ground running alongside the more proven commodities like Bedard and Vlasic. Supplement all that with a few key trade/free-agent additions and this all suddenly looks a lot rosier.
But it cannot be stressed enough that the paragraph above details the best-case scenario and the odds of the stars aligning so perfectly are incredibly slim. And given that the current Blackhawks regime has been hesitant in adding anything but draft picks lately, they’ve done nothing to give themselves a headstart on the other part of this whole rebuild process. Perhaps that all changes in the future and we get legitimate Cup-contending teams by the end of this decade. Right now, though it seems like reaching the playoffs is the only realistic prospect for this decade and true Cup contention won’t arrive until the 2030s.
But the truest part of this whole discussion remains that we likely won’t be able to fully comprehend its success or failure until we have the benefit of hindsight.