Who’s ready for rant time with LBR?!
We touched on this a bit during last week’s podcast and, even though the Blackhawks have had a little more success over the last couple of games, I still wanted to dig a little deeper into a topic addressed by the following tweet:
the sharks have such a 'family' vibe that the hawks dont have at all, the hawks are just a bunch of guys who happen to be playing for the same hockey team
— holly (@KORCHINSK14) January 11, 2025
These tweets are talking specifically about the culture in the locker room of these two teams, but it also extends to the fandom as well. The Sharks are just as bad as the Hawks, both statistically and in terms of results. The two teams are currently tied for last place in the league standings with 34 points apiece, although Chicago has done that in two fewer games. The teams have been been trading off the last place in the league standings every five or so games, have several multi-game losing streaks this season, have lost seven of their last 10 games, etc.
Yet it feels like the Sharks team and its fandom seem far more positive about the team’s current status despite those similarities. Why is that?
Let’s list out some possible reasons for the difference.
First, Blackhawks GM Kyle Davidson set expectations going into this season that have not been met. He said after last season that it was time for the team take a step forward and not be near the bottom of the standings this season. He then went out and acquired some seemingly useful veterans to help achieve that, reiterating that they wanted to be better this season. Instead, the Blackhawks are currently sitting dead last in the standings, which is worse than they were last season.
On the other hand, the Sharks’ management has made no such public assertion of team goals or possible timelines for the rebuild. Maybe it’s smarter to be less outspoken with these internal goals because Davidson’s statement definitely set expectations which have obviously, embarrassingly not been met, while the Sharks and their fans are simply along for the ride right now.
In turn, this has made some Blackhawks fans question Davidson’s player evaluation skills: if he can’t construct a team with the low goal of “not being at the bottom of the league,” can he construct one that could be a Cup contender in the future? Even if it’s too early to be certain — and it is, in my opinion — the concerns over this are legit.
Second, some of the Blackhawks fans’ dissatisfaction with the current rebuild is based on unrealistic standards as they keep comparing the current rebuild to the last one that led to the recent Golden Years. The Blackhawks became a good hockey team almost immediately after their pair of high draft picks arrived at the NHL level: it took them only one season to flirt with the playoffs, two seasons to make the Western Conference Final and three to win a Cup once Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane joined the team. The issue is that a lot of fans aren’t acknowledging that particular rebuild was ongoing — whether intentionally or not — for years prior to the 2006 and 2007 drafts. The Blackhawks had been legitimately bad for about a decade before that and amassed a good prospect pool that included the likes of Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook, Patrick Sharp, Niklas Hjalmarsson, Corey Crawford — the list goes on and on. In a way, Toews and Kane were the icing on an already delicious cake about to be popped in the oven to bake. The quick upward trajectory (and money) enticed big free agents, and Marian Hossa was ultimately the cherry on top for that first Cup win. So a similar three-year timeline to Cup success was never realistic.
The Blackhawks currently have a large, fairly well regarded prospect pool — or at least did coming into the season — but there is definitely more quantity than quality, specifically at forward. For example, there is not another game-breaking forward in the pool that could be the partner to Bedard in the franchise duo that Toews and Kane were to each other. The Sharks likewise have a highly regarded prospect pool heading into the season, but they have something the Blackhawks don’t already on their NHL team: three top-10 prospects who have graduated to the NHL, and two of them are producing — Macklin Celebrini and William Eklund — and could potentially be the Sharks’ next big duo. The third, Will Smith, hasn’t been as successful, but the kid is the fifth youngest player in the NHL right now, so there’s a lot of runway left for him.
Conversely, neither non-Bedard former first-rounders on the Blackhawks — Frank Nazar or Lukas Reichel — have emerged as having that top-end star power. There have been flashes and that could change — we really, really hope that changes — but there’s not enough there yet to bank on it. To Blackhawks fans hoping it’d be a quick, three-year jump to playoff relevancy again, it’s been a shock that little progress has seemingly been made at the NHL level with very few bright spots.
And let’s be honest: the Blackhawks’ semi-recent success also plays a significant role in setting expectations, whether they’re realistic or not. The Blackhawks, as an organization and as a fandom, has known success in the not-so-distant past in a way the Sharks just haven’t, and there’s more pressure to return to that winning culture. The Sharks were relevant in the playoffs more recently, reaching the Stanley Cup Final in 2016 and the Western Conference Final in 2019, but San Jose never won a Cup. The Blackhawks may not have been past the first round since 2015 or made a non-COVID-expanded postseason since 2017, but that was preceded by an arguable dynasty that won three Cups and reached the conference finals two other times in a seven-year span. I mean, the Blackhawks were one missed offsides call away from a three-peat.
On the other hand, the Sharks can’t miss what they’ve never experienced, right?
Now, none of the current Blackhawks players were a part of that winning dynasty, either, but coming to a storied organization has to drive their desire to reach that peak, too. And they have to recognize the fandom are becoming disinterested in the team the farther they get from that level of success with no light at the end of the tunnel.
Next, the Sharks are a step ahead of the Blackhawks in targeting young players to bring into the organization rather than just relying on veteran trades and signings. The Sharks and Blackhawks have a similar number of 25 or younger players on their rosters (10-ish active), but all of the Blackhawks youth is of the homegrown variety (aka their own draft picks). Meanwhile, the Sharks have their own drafted kids along with additional youngsters they’re already stockpiling, players like Fabian Zetterlund, Yaroslav Askarov, Nikolai Kovalenko, Ty Dellandrea, Timothy Liljegren, and Shakir Mukhamadullin. Not all of these young players are going to make it with the Sharks long-term, but the fact that the Sharks management has already taken steps to acquire young talent to audition on the team is more than can be said for the Hawks.
There were quite a few Blackhawks fans annoyed the team wasn’t reportedly in on players like Kaapo Kakko, Askarov, Cutter Gauthier, Oliver Wahlstrom, or Arthur Kaliyev. To be fair to Davidson, it’s unlikely the Nashville Predators would ever have traded their wunderkind goalie prospect Askarov in-division and the Blackhawks couldn’t have matched the Anaheim Ducks return for Gauthier. And we as fans also don’t know what conversations are actually being held behind closed doors, but the complete lack of any media linkage between the Blackhawks and young players on other teams is disappointing.
The Blackhawks bolstered their prospect pool and team ahead of the eventual 2010 Cup win by taking flyers on those types of young players, and eventually they landed guys like Sharp and Kris Versteeg. Andrew Ladd is in there, too, but he was more established at 23 with Carolina than the other two ever were with their respective teams.
Either way, as a result, the Sharks are one of the younger teams in the league while the Blackhawks skew older. Depending on what criteria you go by, the Sharks are either the fifth youngest (according to Left Wing Lock which goes by most recent roster iced) or seventh (according to EP which goes by total members on the roster, including injured players) while the Hawks are are 20th and 19th, respectively, on the same lists. Of course the Sharks will have a more youthful, brotherhood feeling to their locker room when the team is younger in general versus the Blackhawks, who have a few more elder statesmen in their group.
To be fair, most of the veterans signed by Davidson right now are short-term, so there will be room for him to bring in young talent and more appropriate veterans in the future. Just right now, in this moment, it feels like there isn’t much being done on the youth front and that’s where fans are getting antsy. My personal make-or-break point for Davidson will be how he approaches this summer in terms of trades and signings.
All of the above absolutely feeds into the negativity around the team, especially from the fan perspective. But what is possibly the biggest reason behind the culture difference? What is making the Sharks locker room and approach more tolerable despite the team being just as bad while it’s a consistent feeling of doom and gloom for the Blackhawks?
It feels like the Sharks have actually allowed their young players to impact the culture in the room, making it feel youthful and family-like at the same time, while the Blackhawks seemed to have leaned into their veteran leadership a lot for identity.
And that’s ironic, considering Davidson basically said the main reason the Blackhawks parted ways with Toews and Kane was to allow the next group of young players to grow in their careers and leadership roles without being overshadowed by those legacy players in the same way that Toews, Kane, and other young players were allowed to do before the Golden Years.
At the time, this approach seemed valid, creating an open space for Bedard and others to come in and put their own stamp on the team. However, the execution so far hasn’t really worked out, as the loudest voices coming from the locker room are not the young players. I’m not trying to lay the blame on Nick Foligno here but there doesn’t seem to be much of an identity around this group beyond disappointed “step dad vibes,” as Eric called it on the last podcast.
The Sharks have a similar veteran leadership group, with 27 year-old Luke Kunin being the youngest among alternate captains, but the kids seem more involved in speaking for the team during media interviews, on social media posts and with their on-ice celebrations. The Blackhawk losses are hitting the veterans hard, which is trickling down to the young players. The Sharks have lost basically as many games, but their post-game interviews seem so much more uplifting. It’s not all rainbows and puppies in San Jose, but the team doesn’t seem to be letting the losing wreck them the way Blackhawks plays are. Again, expectations about where the team was supposed to be at versus where they actually are is likely playing role here.
The makeup of this Blackhawks team skews towards veterans players, and it’s nice to have them around, but why should we care too much about the guys aren’t going to be around for a season or two? The highlight on the Pat Maroon and Lukas Reichel relationship was nice but that seemed like the only connection we’d heard about until Alex Vlasic sat down with CHGO last week and said Alec Martinez was his best friend on the team. There’s historical evidence from this team’s own marketing campaigns of working the veteran players in to content that still focuses on the younger stars who are going to be the long-term franchise fixtures:
The Sharks are doing a better job of featuring their young stars on the ice, too, as the Sharks young forwards often to play together in some formation or another. Celebrini’s most common line is with Eklund and Zetterlund; his second highest had Kovalenko on it; and he’s spent at least 150 minutes with Eklund, Zetterlund, and Smith. In comparison, only the Blackhawks young defensemen — Alex Vlasic and Louis Crevier — come close to those minutes together. As for forwards, Philipp Kurashev is the only player 25 or younger who’s spent significant time on the ice with Bedard (about 189 minutes). The next closest is Reichel at about 60 minutes. Yes, over the last few weeks, Bedard and Nazar have been skating together and hopefully that line is allowed to stay together to see if they can cook. No, there aren’t as many other options available for young forwards to skate together in Chicago, but that brings us back around to choices Davidson has made to focus on bringing in veterans instead of bringing in younger players from outside the organization.
It also doesn’t help that the young players on the Blackhawks are being held to a different standard than the veterans. Sorensen cannot hit us with (paraphrasing) “x-player needs to show more effort” or “y-player needs to have better puck management” when there are veterans on the team that look like they’re phoning it in occasionally or are just playing some of the worst hockey of their careers. This is especially annoying when the Blackhawks management group has said over and over at the start of the season that all players — veterans and kids alike — would have to earn their playing time this season, yet it has not felt that way for much of the season. If anything, the young players should be given more rope to play through their mistakes. There’s no need to showcase the veterans for the trade deadline either — they’re known quantities, and there’s very little chance that a GM going to suddenly change their minds on guys who have been in the NHL on average a decade.
This is not an attempt to rain on the parade of anyone who still has high hopes for the Blackhawks rebuild — I actually still think they’re on the expected timeline when considering it was basically starting from scratch after a complete teardown. The face that a few of Stan Bowman’s final picks (Vlasic, Allan, Kaiser) are flashing as potential long-term pieces is great. While plenty of question marks exist regarding some of the top picks — primarily talking about defensemen here — there are other prospects who seem to be exceeding the expectations of their draft slots. Looking at you, Sam Rinzel, Nick Lardis and Roman Kantserov.
Still … there has to be a way to rebuild without putting a product on the ice that’s so bad it’s soul-crushing, right? The Sharks seem to be doing it right now, finding a way to keep the losing from becoming too depressing. The Blackhawks? Not so much.
It starts with the GM not making promises he can’t keep, because a lot of the angst seems to point back to that declaration. The Blackhawks needed to be bad again this season for the chance at another high draft pick and, while Davidson can’t necessarily come out and say that because they still have tickets to sell, perhaps he didn’t need to set those expectations so publicly. There could also be more of a focus on the kids at the NHL level, who should be playing as much as possible. I’d much rather see Wyatt Kaiser working his way through rookie mistakes instead of 14-year NHL veteran TJ Brodie. Find a way to empower the younger players to have a voice, both within the locker room internally and across all media platforms externally.
This certainly wasn’t ever going to be as fun as the prior decade of Blackhawks hockey. But it also doesn’t feel like it needs to be this bad, either.