The Chicago Blackhawks went into the 23-24 off-season as one of the most talent devoid rosters in the league; however, they did possess the number one overall pick, and knowing they were going to get a generational talent in Connor Bedard, Kyle Davidson did everything in his authority to build a competitive roster around Bedard. Notably, the team brought in several veterans to play around their developing young core, and they drafted beyond just Bedard to find foundational pieces to move the organization into their next competitive era.

The first major move of their off-season was going out and acquiring Taylor Hall and Nick Foligno in a cap dump from the Boston Bruins. Taylor Hall, in recent years, specifically during his tenure in Boston and Buffalo, has been either average or a star-level producer. We are likely to see him continue to produce at a star-level playing with Bedard due to high power-play minutes playing with a potential generational goal-scorer. Hall historically lacks a defensive presence, but the acquisition of Foligno gives the team a versatile player who is good in his own zone, can contribute offensively, and was captain in the NHL for the Columbus Blue Jackets. Also, in trying to build a winning veteran culture Chicago went out and acquired Corey Perry, who at this stage of his career is basically a mentor and a protector on the ice for young players like Bedard, Reichel, and Korchinski. The last interesting veteran acquisition that Chicago made this off-season with the signing of Ryan Donato. Donato has predominantly been an average level producer since his rookie season; however, if given the opportunity Donato has shown flashes that he could be a late blooming offensive star.

Also of note for the Chicago Blackhawks when touching upon their young core is that Lucas Reichel had a great year last season in Chicago, and based on his player development cards from hockeyprospecting, his career trajectory could be anywhere between a Dylan Dube or a Robert Thomas level producer for the organization moving forward. In addition to Reichel, a player that I thought was overdrafted last year, Kevin Korchinski, had a breakout year in the CHL. Through the last three seasons he has shown incredibly similar comparables to Dougie Hamilton from about nine years ago. 

In terms of the draft, I’m not going to spend a lot of time on Connor Bedard because if you are reading this article you know who he is and you know why the Blackhawks drafted him. Simply, he is going to be the next great goal scoring centerman in the NHL. He could be better than Steven Stamkos, he could be better than Jack Eichel, hell, he could be as good as Connor McDavid. No one knows for sure, but he will be somewhere in that spectrum. Chicago did have a second first round pick, which they used on Oliver Moore. Looking at Moore’s play last year with the USNTDP, he definitely has offensive upside, but at this point his comparables have so much variation that it is hard to say what kind of player he will be at the NHL level, so I look forward to watching his play at the U of Minnesota this season. I would also like to highlight their second round selection of Roman Kantserov. Looking at his output in Russia last season within the context of his size, he looks very similar to Kailer Yamamoto coming out of juniors; however, if he has a better coaching system and development trajectory we could see him as a high-end offensive contributor for Chicago by the end of the decade. Davidson’s other big name second round selection was Adam Gajan who is an interesting goaltending Prospect. Now I’m not in the business of throwing shade at a goaltending prospect, but I believe Gajan was overdrafted due to NHL Scouts’ archaic opinions in regard to valuing World Juniors above all other performance Analytics. In this instance Gajan had a great world juniors run, but he played tier 2 junior in the NAHL last season while having the 17th best save percentage in the league. Conversely, the NAHL’s save percentage leader, Gavin Moffatt, was not drafted this year, despite having a save percentage two-tenths higher than Gajan playing structured consistent opponents. I could go further into my analysis of world juniors wrongly impacting scouting, but I will save that for a future article.

In conclusion, the Chicago Blackhawks had an exceptional off-season where they not only put themselves in a position to contend for the postseason, but also established foundational building blocks heading into their future. The obvious highlight of the off-season was the Conor Bedard draft pick and bringing over a potential star in Taylor Hall. The only low light of their off-season was that Chicago did not address their future and current goaltending situation with either a high-end player or high-end prospect. I would have liked to have seen them find a way to either acquire one of Juuse Saros, Linus Ullmark, or Connor Hellebuyck, or find a way to get a better Prospect than Drew Commesso into their system. Despite that, I still need to give Chicago an A on their off-season due to being the most improved NHL team from the end of last season to the start of next.

-Christian