The Chicago Blackhawks Need A Plan For The Future
By Jim Lynch
The Chicago Blackhawks are a team running out the clock on the season and it isn’t even February. The Hawks still have a lot of games to go, yet the year already seems to be in the rearview mirror as the team had a bad start that is still holding them back.
The Blackhawks are out of a playoff spot, even with wins in their last few games they are 16 points behind the front of the division and are a handful of points away from a playoff spot – even though they have played more games than a lot of their opponents in the division.
Our recent power rankings put them as a team in the middle of the pack. They are not the worst in the league but they are not good enough to really be in the playoffs – even though that was the expectation at the beginning of the year.
The Blackhawks could just run out the clock on the 2021-22 season, or they can start planning for the future.
This team is still waiting to add a president of hockey operations and their general manager has the word interim in front of the title. Getting the decision-makers in that are going to be running this team for the next handful of years needs to be step one for the organization. Then they need to put a plan in place.
What to do with Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane?
Which young players are worth building around?
Who has the best potential of bringing back prospects and picks at the deadline?
What players to draft at the upcoming NHL draft?
Who is the right fit to be the head coach and general manager during the coming years?
There are a lot of questions that need to be answered about this team sooner rather than later. The plan for this team probably revolves around trading away contracts and players that can be sold at the deadline, then putting all the focus on the future of this team by playing whatever young players are still in the depths of the organization. It is pretty similar to just last year when the message was to let the kids play and worry about the result later. It is crazy to think this team is back to square one at this point already.
The Blackhawks had a lot of hope going into the season and that hope went out the drain pretty quick with a horrible start with then-head coach Jeremy Colliton. While their still is a lot of time to right those wrongs this season, with how tough the division is and how good some of the other teams are it just doesn’t seem likely that the Blackhawks can find their way back in the hunt this year.