The long nightmare is finally over: the Blackhawks won a game Wednesday night to snap their eight-game losing streak, leaving the Blues in the Central Division basement with a 1-0 win at the United Center.
Now that the doom and gloom from the losing streak has subsided, let’s take a step back and re-examine something Blackhawks president and CEO John McDonough said during the press conference last week introducing new head coach Jeremy Colliton. Madeline Kenney of the Chicago Sun-Times has the details in a tweet below:
McDonough said this isn’t rebuilding, “it’s remodeling.”
“We want to win. We want to re-win … Sometimes as painful as it is, you need a fresh start.” #Blackhawks
— Madeline Kenney (@madkenney) November 6, 2018
It was interesting to hear a moment of relative transparency from what’s traditionally been a tight-lipped Blackhawks front office. Although McDonough mentioned the Blackhawks needing to win in the future, they haven’t been all that aggressive with player movement.
None of the major acquisitions the Blackhawks have made in the last two seasons are indicative of a team looking for an immediate run to the Stanley Cup
- The Niklas Hjalmarsson/Connor Murphy trade made the Hawks younger but cost them one of their established veterans on the blue line
- The Brandon Saad/Artemi Panarin trade boosted the Blackhawks financial health, thanks to the cost certainty of Saad’s contract, but cost Chicago one of the league’s top offensive weapons
- Trading the Marian Hossa contract away provided even more cap flexibility, which will likely go toward new contracts for Alex DeBrincat and Nick Schmaltz/
The moves the Blackhawks haven’t made have also been noteworthy. Trading away the No. 8 overall pick in this year’s NHL Draft could’ve yielded an established NHL player or two. Instead, the Blackhawks used it to add another top defensive prospect. Chicago has also been noticeably quiet in the last two free agency sessions, opting for veteran stopgaps when big names like John Tavares were there to be acquired.
But nothing Chicago has done suggests it’s “tanking” either.
For one, all of the big names (and cap hits) are still here: Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook and Corey Crawford. The only player the Blackhawks unloaded last season was Ryan Hartman, who was in the final year of his entry-level contract, receiving two picks (first-rounder Nicolas Beaudin and fourth-rounder Philipp Kurashev) and a prospect (Victor Ejdsell) which again suggests an eye for the future. The Blackhawks have hung on to virtually every young player they have in the system, fortifying a farm system that was depleted by Cup runs earlier this decade and an absolutely dreadful 2015 draft class.
So what did McDonough mean when he said the Blackhawks are in the middle of a “remodeling” period?
Here’s my best guess.
The Blackhawks are trying to tread water for the immediate future, probably through the rest of this season and likely next season, too. The hope from the front office, it seems, is that the veteran talent can jell with the younger players on the roster and morph into a team that’s good enough to reach the playoffs for the next few seasons, providing a financial boost after a playoff-less 2017-18 season and giving the Blackhawks younger players some exposure to the rigors of the playoffs. I highly doubt the Blackhawks brass envisions this 2018-19 team emerging as a Cup contender. But McDonough specifically mentioned the playoffs as a goal for this season — that’s not something tanking teams do.
During the next few seasons, the hope is Kane and Toews can maintain high levels of play, Saad bounces back to top-six form consistently and DeBrincat and Schmaltz flourish as top-six forwards. That’s probably the top of the forward group for the immediate future. On defense, draft picks will start to make their way up to the NHL roster in players like Beaudin, Adam Boqvist, Beaudin, Ian Mitchell and Chad Krys, among others. In net, Crawford’s contract is up in 2020 and it certainly looks like Collin Delia will take over the No. 1 job from there.
Then, early in the next decade, this blue line led by youngsters combined with a more veteran forward group will — if everything goes smoothly — push the Blackhawks back into Cup contention.
Or so we all hope.