The Rebuilding Blackhawks Need To Make Adjustments At This Position

The Chicago Blackhawks rebuild is in full swing. After a fun start of the year where the Hawks were winning games, they have fallen to earth and have an overall record of 7-13-4 on the year.

Only the Anaheim Ducks have fewer points in the entire league at this point, but Chicago will compete for the bottom spot! Right now, the Hawks are 1-8-1 in their last ten. For a team trying to rebuild, this is probably the best result possible to land a topic prospect like Connor Bedard or Adam Fantilli, but I think there is a change that would drastically help the team.

The Rebuilding Blackhawks Need To Make Adjustments At This Position

The Chicago Blackhawks are rebuilding, yet their blueline consists of guys like Connor Murphy, Jack Johnson, Jake McCabe, and Seth Jones, all of whom are 28 or older.

The Hawks have a number of young options for their defense. They recently recalled Ian Mitchell, who is one of those young players.

Ian Mitchell has played in just two games this season with the Hawks. He is just 23 years old and last got into a game on Nove 20 against the Pittsburgh Penguins. In both games, Mitchell was a -2. The team even traded Nicolas Beaudin this past October, in part because he was not going to get a chance with the team. Beaudin was another young player who ended up not being able to crack the Hawks lineup.

The Hawks have a number of young options for their blueline, and that number is only going to get bigger in the next few years. Currently guys like Alex Vlasic, Alec Regula, Nolan Allen and Kevin Korchinski all are in the Blackhawks system that could be on the team down the line.

While there is an advantage to keeping the young players off the team while the group loses this season, part of me thinks that some of these guys would be better off in the NHL with the Hawks playing. Which brings me to the main point here.

The Blackhawks have three defensemen signed for at least the next three years. Those guys are Jake McCabe, Connor Murphy and Seth Jones. While Jones might be impossible to trade due to his contract, Murphy and McCabe both could provide some value to a team trying to win now that is missing out on a defensemen.

Connor Murphy is the guy who I think has the most trade value. This season he has played in 24 games averaging 19:55 minutes of ice time a night. He has 49 hits and 49 blocked shots and he has constantly been one of the teams better defensemen since joining the team in 2017.

Murphy is not going to score a lot of goals with any team but he can be a big help on the blueline and blocking pucks and dishing out big hits. He does have two goals so far this season like this one against the Red Wings.

The Blackhawks rebuild is all about acquiring assets for the future. Trading someone like Connor Murphy might be a necessary step to bring back a few prospects or draft picks, and it also would clear up a spot on the roster for a young defenseman to step into the lineup.