It’s been a while since we’ve talked, hasn’t it, SCH?
Our Top 25 Under 25 will be back after the holiday weekend and we’ve got individual articles coming for each of the players in the Top 10. Those with exceptional curiosity about those players may want to ensure they’re subscribers here. Just sayin’.
With the calendar now flipped to September, though, it means we’re in the month where we’ll receive our first official glimpses of Connor Bedard in a Blackhawks uniform, with one such glimpse reportedly happening in a few weeks at the annual Tom Kurvers Prospect Showcase. There are so many things that Bedard’s presence within the organization represents, but from this standpoint, the most simple thing it represents is the returned existence of hope.
It seems like that hope would be an omnipresent aspect of sports fandom, the justification of faith that something, anything good has a chance of happening. But it doesn’t take too long of a glance to see multiple places within this very city where all hope is gone — just ask the nearest White Sox fan. Most Bulls fans are likely in similarly dire straits. The Bears and Cubs have restored hope in the last few seasons and now, it seems, like the Blackhawks’ organization has also restored legitimate reasons for hope which haven’t existed for several seasons now.
Those with enough of a perspective to observe the state of the organization with a wide enough lens could see the collapse coming as the 2010s wound down and the 2020s arrived. The hope that Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane would have one last chase for a potential Stanley Cup faded as so many of the contributory pieces to the team’s prior successes aged out of productivity or began plying their trades elsewhere. Toews and Kane fell victim to Father Time’s inevitable victory over their physical conditions and a woefully inept series of picks and prospects were nowhere near enough to shoulder the remaining workload necessary for a Cup-contending team. Just a few weeks into the 2021-22 season, it was becoming more and more evident that none of this could be salvaged, and the entire organization had to be demolished so a new foundation could be constructed — and that’s just from the on-ice perspective.
But that’s all behind us now, isn’t it? The Blackhawks have the guy in Bedard who, if all goes according to plan, could end up as the team’s captain until something like 2040. Behind that guy is a slew of prospects who mostly seem to be trending in the right direction and could provide the necessary supporting cast — when mixed in with the acquisitions likely to follow in upcoming offseason — worthy of contention for a Stanley Cup. Coach Luke Richardson and GM Kyle Davidson and the rest of the front office seem to have had a solid grasp on the early stages of this rebuilding process, although there remains scant evidence for — or against — their long-term viability in their current roles. Still, with the aid of a massively fortunate bounce, there’s a lot to like about the way the organizational picture looks right now.
The road remains uncertain, of course, and there’s no guarantee that this current rebuild will result in Stanley Cup championships down the road. But it actually seems like the road could head that way now, instead of miserably spiraling down the same path, with zero signs of a turnaround ahead.
Perhaps the easiest way to summarize all these ramblings is by pointing out that, in 27 days from this writing, the Blackhawks have a preseason game at home against the St. Louis Blues. Assuming that Bedard is in the lineup, it feels like a must-watch game, simply for the chance to see what Bedard does.
When was the last time you cared about a Blackhawks preseason game?