It hasn’t been a successful last few seasons in the win-loss column for the Blackhawks as the team is set to miss the postseason for the sixth straight year and eighth time in the last nine seasons. However, the general consensus is that the team is on the way up as their rebuild continues.
Someone who feels that way is Team Chairman and CEO Danny Wirtz. He revealed on CHSN during tonight’s pregame show (Twitter link) that the team has signed GM Kyle Davidson to a contract extension. Terms of the deal were not revealed. Minutes after that, the team officially announced the extension, noting it’s a multi-year agreement. Wirtz released the following statement:
Kyle’s exceptional body of work to date has set us down the path of bringing sustainable, championship-caliber hockey back to Chicago. In a short amount of time, he’s rebuilt the team through strong drafting and player development, delivering a league-leading prospect pool and the beginnings of our future core. He alongside Head Coach Jeff Blashill have redefined our locker room’s culture and mentality, and we are seeing improvements in all of the underlying areas that make winning possible. We believe in Kyle’s vision for this team and remain fully committed to his plan to return the Blackhawks to the top of our sport.
Davidson is in his fourth season at the helm in Chicago after taking on the job in the 2022-23 season. Initially promoted as an interim GM, the interim tag was taken off in March 2022. As Wirtz indicated in his announcement, Davidson was tasked with restocking a prospect pool that, at the time, was one of the weaker ones in the NHL.
To accomplish that objective, Davidson embarked on a full-scale rebuild, trading away several key veterans and even some younger core pieces that didn’t fit in the plans. In doing so, the team dropped sharply in the standings, but doing so allowed them to secure several key cogs, including centers Connor Bedard and Anton Frondell and defenseman Artyom Levshunov. Additionally, moving out Kirby Dach allowed them to add the draft pick that secured them Frank Nazar, who has quickly become a core piece as well.
But while Davidson has indeed put together a very strong prospect pool that’s set to graduate some more youngsters in short order, that’s only one part of getting this team back to playoff contention. He has brought in quite a few veterans in recent years to either act as bridge players to the prospects or, more recently, serve as pieces to help the team’s floor. Tyler Bertuzzi and Teuvo Teravainen were signed in free agency while Andre Burakovsky was added via trade to try to help push the team forward while also bringing in a more established head coach in Blashill. Instead, while they’ve added nine points from a year ago in the standings, they’re actually scoring even less than a year ago, despite better than a point-per-game showing from Bedard.
For the Blackhawks to truly take that next step forward, they will need to find a way to add more prominent veterans to help bring the team along while their youngsters continuing to improve will also aid in that objective. Davidson has a little more than $40MM in cap space for next season as things stand, per PuckPedia, so they certainly have the flexibility needed to add more core pieces to their roster. With this vote of confidence, Wirtz is banking on Davidson being able to do just that.
There is job security for a GM in a rebuild, Who sits back and collects draft picks, And, does little else to move the team forward, The Blackhawks have averaged 25.5 wins annually for the last five seasons, The rebuild seems stalled.
That’s kind of what I was thinking Grapes. After 4-5 years and STILL they are second last in the league? Didn’t the Sharks start their rebuild after Chicago? Every year we hear about these great prospects coming, and every year they are bottom feeders. Guess we’ll see next year….
I mean it’s not Kyle’s fault Macklin >>>>>>> Bedard. The Sharks are still kinda wonky–Celebrini is a part of nearly all their goals. Bedard is a different kind of player, and needs a better supporting cast to feed him pucks, and that’s why the full rebuild is taking longer.
Knight is a good young goalie (a smart move by Davidson), but they really need Levshunov to take a step forward. Frondell looks amazing already, Nazar looks is still young, Rinzel has some potential. They could shore up their D this summer, and look a lot better next year as a couple of these guys start to hit their prime.
Just proves that neither of you actually watch what’s going on with smatinup guy being the dumbest guy here with about a hundred variations of the same name. Unfortunately none of them know anything with him just saying a couple of days ago that KD was gonna get fired. People in Chicago know what’s going on and love what KD is building. When it goes off it’s going to be great and long time sustained. Well deserved Kyle.
And when our Hawks are flying high again they’ll probably use good ol’ revisionist history to act like they never said any of this garbage.
Book it.
We know who the real fans are though, so they’re in for a rude awakening. 🤷♂️
KD is not as good as some think and not as bad as others say. He’s been okay, but we’ll see when he has to worry about cap space in a few years. They are about 1/2 way tonight in their finale and have 6 SOG vs SJ. Mason West might help in 3-4 years so we’ll have to be patient.