Pro Hockey Rumors

The offseason has arrived for half of the league’s teams that aren’t taking part in the playoffs.  Accordingly, it’s now time to examine what they will need to accomplish over the coming months.  Next up is a look at Chicago.

Last summer, Blackhawks GM Kyle Davidson upped his spending, bringing in several veterans with an eye on raising the floor of the current group while allowing some of their prospects to get more time in with AHL Rockford.  It accomplished the latter but not the former as they finished second last for the second straight year while being in the bottom three overall for the third consecutive campaign.  As a result, there’s another busy to-do list for Chicago this offseason.

Hire A Head Coach

One of the first items that Davidson will need to do is get his coaching situation sorted out.  Following a slow start to the season, Luke Richardson was let go after the team played to just an 8-16-2 record.  Anders Sorensen was then promoted from AHL Rockford on an interim basis but couldn’t get much more out of the group as Chicago was 17-30-9 the rest of the way while former Blackhawk blueliner Seth Jones bemoaned the lack of progress the team had made just a few days before he was dealt to Florida.

While Sorensen is expected to receive consideration for the full-time head coaching position, it would be a surprise to see him get the role given the lack of improvement following Richardson’s dismissal.  More likely is that he remains with the organization either as an assistant or returning to the IceHogs.

There are a couple of options that Davidson can go here.  He can opt for another first-time head coach that can focus on player development or look for a more experienced one to try to give them a short-term boost to get them out of the basement in the standings.

On the first-time coach front, Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli reported last week on CHSN (Twitter link) that Denver University head coach David Carle sits atop their wish list of candidates.  Carle’s coaching experience is predominantly limited to his time with Denver (spanning more than a decade) aside from a brief assistant coach role with USHL Green Bay previously and running USA Hockey’s World Junior team the last two seasons.  While that’s not necessarily the typical route for a coach to take before going to the NHL, Carle is widely considered to be one of the top options available this year.  They could also look to some AHL bench bosses if they want to go with more of a development coach.

But after three years of being in the bottom three, there’s an expectation that Chicago should be starting to move to the next phase of its rebuild, one that makes them much more competitive.  In that case, they could be inclined to look toward a more experienced coach, one with a track record of getting more out of their team quickly.  This wouldn’t necessarily have to be the long-term hire for the rebuild but rather someone to help take them through the next phase of being more competitive.  With other teams having openings now, Davidson will have to move fairly quickly if he has a top target or two to try to land.

Bedard Extension Talks

While Connor Bedard’s first two NHL seasons may not have quite lived up to the lofty expectations that were placed upon him, they were still pretty good.  After putting up 61 points in 68 games in his rookie year, he picked up 23 goals and 44 assists in 82 games this season, leading the Blackhawks in scoring for the second straight season.  Thrown to the wolves in terms of getting top minutes and the toughest defensive assignments, the good more than outweighed the bad even with the 2023 top pick struggling a bit more often than expected.

Nonetheless, there’s no reason to think that Bedard isn’t going to be a significant part of their long-term core.  Even if he doesn’t become the next elite NHL superstar, he appears well on his way to being an impact top liner.  Basically, he’s already there at age 19.  Accordingly, there should be no hesitation in trying to lock him up to an extension as soon as possible.

In this case, as soon as possible is July 1st as that’s when Bedard officially begins the final year of his entry-level contract which makes him extension-eligible.  He has made it clear that he wants to remain with Chicago long-term so both sides will almost certainly be focusing on trying to get a deal done this summer.

As is often the case in these situations, there’s a lot of projecting that will need to be done on both sides in terms of trying to extrapolate how much more Bedard can do offensively.  Based on his output the last two years, his likely AAV would come in around $8.5MM.  But it’s unlikely Bedard would sign for that on a long-term deal at this point; it would make more sense for him to wait and see if he has a big boost in production that could up his price tag considerably in the 2026 offseason.  With that in mind, it’s going to take a fair bit more than that to get something done now.

The projected cap increases make older comparisons a little less usable now but high-end picks were often coming in between 9.5% and 11% of the cap when they were signed.  Bedard should feasibly be in that range.  Based off the NHL’s tentative target of a $104MM Upper Limit for 2026-27, that would put Bedard’s range between $9.88MM and $11.44MM.  Connor McDavid’s second deal was an outlier but checked in at 15.74% which would be $16.37MM in 2026-27 dollars.  That would be the richest deal in league history so Bedard’s unlikely to land there but something toward the top of that 11% range could very well be what’s needed to get something done in the months ahead.

Restart Donato Discussions

Going back to before the trade deadline, one of the discussions going on was with forward Ryan Donato.  The pending UFA was in the midst of a career year and the hope was that they could get a deal done and avoid any speculation of moving him by March 7th.  That didn’t happen but Davidson elected to set a very high asking price, one that no one was willing to meet so Donato stayed put for the stretch run.

Now that the season is over, it’s time for those talks to get rekindled.  Before the deadline, Scott Powers of The Athletic reported (subscription link) that the deal that the team put on the table was a three-year offer worth somewhere around $4MM per season.  Considering the 29-year-old made $2MM the last two years, that’s a fairly significant improvement while giving him some medium-term stability which is notable considering he’s played for five teams in his eight-year career.

However, a price tag around there isn’t exactly commensurate with the season Donato just had.  He finished second to Bedard in team scoring with 31 goals and 31 assists in 80 games while even spending a bulk of the season at center, a position that’s in high demand on the open market.  Other players with a track record of that type of production could command $7MM or more a few months from now.

Of course, Donato doesn’t exactly have that track record of production.  Before this season, he had only reached 30 points twice while his personal bests in goals and assists were 16 and 18, respectively.  As a result, this season was quite the outlier for Donato and that is certainly factored into Chicago’s offer to retain him.  Their offer is a relatively low-risk one given that they have ample cap space and several veterans coming off the books in 2026.

Donato will need to assess if he’s better off staying in a situation that he has clearly had success in or testing the market to see if someone’s willing to make a more lucrative and/or longer-term offer, assuming there isn’t much wiggle room in what the Blackhawks currently have on the table.  There’s still lots of time to get something done but after getting their new head coach in place, this should shift to the top of Davidson’s short-term priority list.

Make A Splash

Last summer, the Blackhawks had plenty of cap space, leading some to wonder if they might take a big swing.  Instead, they spent on bringing in plenty of veterans, highlighted by Tyler Bertuzzi and Teuvo Teravainen up front and Alec Martinez on the back end.  There were varying degrees of success with those signings; Teravainen wasn’t far behind Donato for second on the team in scoring while on the other end, T.J. Brodie struggled so much that he might be a buyout candidate in June.

That approach worked with this being another year where expectations weren’t particularly high.  Their prospects got more development time in Rockford, again, to varying degrees of success.  But while they got away with this strategy last summer, it feels like they need to something much more substantial to at least drag the rebuild forward.

Chicago needs to find a way to land an impact talent or two.  In a perfect world, they outbid teams for one of the top players up front, giving Bedard a running mate to see if that helps him take the next step forward toward living up to his lofty potential.  With a little over $30MM in cap space, per PuckPedia, the money is certainly there to spend this summer.  Meanwhile, even with Bedard heading for a big-ticket contract in 2026, it should be affordable with the Blackhawks having a deep prospect pool, allowing them to have most cost-controlled players over the coming years.  The time feels right for Chicago to take a big swing this summer.

Photo courtesy of Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images.