I’ve been struggling to find the words to put into this space for a few weeks now, which is why this is running on the same day as the Blackhawks first game of the 2026-27 season instead of the day before it, per the original plan.
And as I’m approaching the deadline of publishing the initial entry for this (hopefully!) weekly series that will again (hopefully!) run throughout the season, I’m going to be a little bit lame and invoke the cliche that there isn’t much left to be said, because it’s time for action now.
Ever since the teardown portion of this whole rebuild process started, we’ve been hearing these names for years. A few of them were already in the system, with Alex Vlasic onboard since 2019 and Wyatt Kaiser joining in 2020. Beginning in 2022, though, the names we started penciling into lineups for the back half of this decade — and hopefully into the next one — started arriving in clumps. That year brought Kevin Korchinski, Frank Nazar, Sam Rinzel and Ryan Greene. The next year produced Connor Bedard, Oliver Moore, Roman Kantserov and Nick Lardis. That’s already 10 of the 23 players named to the opening roster on Monday night. Toss in a No. 2 pick from 2024 and a No. 3 pick from 2025 and you’re over half of that roster being Chicago draft picks, with other players from those draft classes potentially on the way later this season.
We’ve learned the names. We’ve debated the names. We’ve ranked the names. Most of that helped kill the seemingly never-ending time that existed while those names were occupying rosters in Seattle or Ann Arbor or Boston or Brantford or Magnitogorsk. Now they’re on the roster in Chicago, though. Now, we’re not going to wish or hope or guess or project or speculate: we’re going to see. We’re going to see if Vlasic and Kaiser can be more consistent while handling 20-plus minutes a night. We’re going to see if Korchinski’s worked through his growing pains. We’re going to see if Bedard can be a superstar for more than a month or two when he returns. We’re going to see if Nazar can live up to the salary bump he’s now receiving. We’re going to see if Moore has NHL-level tools beyond his skates. We’re going to see if Kantserov can produce in the NHL like he did elsewhere. We’re going to see if Lardis can produce in the NHL like he did elsewhere. And on and on and on we go.
There have been varying samples of those players throughout the last handful of seasons, but never this many, never at the same time, and never in Chicago for this long. Even last season’s kid-heavy lineups over the final month still had a decent number of veterans hanging around who kept a kid or two in the press box.
It feels like we’re at a pivotal moment in this whole process, because it’ll be much easier to build the case for long-term success or failure come April when we have a full 84 games of this roster to pore over for data. That makes the next six-plus months more intriguing than any we’ve had since …
…
…
… whatever year you landed on, it was too long ago.
We can stop sharing our thoughts or feelings on whether or not this is all going to work — Hossa knows we’ve tried that far too many times in this space. Everyone can put their pencils down, now, because that’s all done. It’s time to show the work.
The Week That Was
No, we’re not putting preseason games here.
Cold Cash and Cold Hearts
Last season, we pledged $1 for every Blackhawks goal scored to be donated to the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant & Refugee Rights and its 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.” The needs of that organization have not gone away because the inhumanity remains on display all over the Chicago area and throughout the country — the perpetrators are just being quieter about it than they were a year ago. So, we’re making the same pledge. And if you’re able to do so, we’d encourage you to do the same, because the needs of groups such as ICIRR have not gone away.
Holding On
There’s been some talk of playoffs (cue up the Jim Mora clip) from those within the Blackhawks’ locker room over the last month or so. While the early returns of our community vote suggest minimal faith in the reality of that achievement, the fact that it’s being discussed suggests growing dissatisfaction with the pile-up of losses from the last few seasons. And that’s a good thing, because losing sucks, yet it’s about all the Hawks prospects have known since arriving at the NHL. There have been a few subtle hints that the Hawks’ new captain is feeling that, too. Not in the Denis Lemieux sense, but more in the sense that internal changes are required of the team he’s now officially leading to start turning some of these winnable games from the last few years into actual wins. From this vantage, it was telling that Bedard’s article in the Players Tribune announcing his captaincy ended with “Let’s go win some damn hockey games.” And the four seconds of the clip below from Bedard’s end-of-season interview last April remain front of mind:
Are playoff expectations delusional? Probably. But those players already defied insanely slim odds by making it to the NHL, so they’re used to having aspirations that seem unrealistic to those on the outside. The real question is regarding what they’ve been doing differently to make that happen.
The average point total of the second wild card team in the Western Conference this decade is 95 points. Chicago had 72 last season. The bar will be slightly higher with the schedule adding two more games. An increase of at least 23 points increase in the standings between seasons is not impossible. Colorado’s done it multiple times this century, New Jersey did it earlier this decade and Buffalo did it last season. The Hawks even did it once, just not when you’re thinking: the 2001-02 Hawks had 96 points after 71 the season prior.
It’s still not likely to happen this season for the Hawks. But at least it’s on their radar now.
The Week That Will Be
Tuesday, Sept. 29: Blackhawks at Golden Knights
The Hawks actually took three of a possible six points from their trio of games against Vegas last season, which bears mentioning because it always feels like Hawks/Knights games are death.
Thursday, Oct. 1: Blackhawks at Mammoth
Finding it interesting that the young talent built through the draft by this franchise is almost exclusively at forward. Of the six blue-liners expected to start the season, only one (Dmitri Simashev) is a player drafted by Utah/Arizona. There could be a homegrown talent or two on the way in future seasons, but it just seemed noteworthy.
Saturday, Oct. 3: Blackhawks at Sabres
Pretty brutal stretch to start the season, isn’t it?