Chicago Blackhawks: The current core meets the future core

The Chicago Blackhawks have a lot of really good players on the team and they will make up the teams core for a long time.

The Chicago Blackhawks have had lots of great players come through over the years. They have even had a few guys be considered a part of the core that you wouldn’t call stars by any means, but they were so important nonetheless. Then there are guys like Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Duncan Keith, and Brent Seabrook who are still there and will be looking to be helped out by some of the newer parts of the team that will make up the core of the future.

They have done a decent job at drafting in the first and second rounds over the last few years and that has really helped the future outlook of this team. The farm system wasn’t looking great after they mortgaged a lot of it for chances to make deep playoff runs and luckily for them they were able to win the Stanley Cup three times in six seasons.

Now some of that is replenished and they have what appears to be a future core that is ready to join forces with the old core. If both the veterans and the young guys all play well this upcoming season they could be a team that makes the playoffs and perhaps wins a round or two. There are still some glaring weaknesses and some mistakes have been made in recent history, but the future looks decently bright.

They have added a former top-three pick in Dylan Strome via trade with the Arizona Coyotes. He is going to be the second-line center behind Toews and could make up a great line with another big future piece of this team, Alex DeBrincat. DeBrincat was a second-round pick and it is looking like was a steal. These two forwards are such a big part of the future right now and the Blackhawks made one really smart trade there for Strome and did an excellent job in drafting DeBrincat.

They also made what looks like a smart pick when they drafted Adam Boqvist in the first round of the 2018 NHL Draft. The eighth overall pick looks like he is going to be a really solid offensive-minded defenseman in the NHL and he could be just what the Blackhawks need for a role like that. It was a weird pick at the time, but now it is looking like they could be lucky to have Boqvist in the coming years.

They struck gold when they won one of the lotteries at the 2019 NHL Draft lottery. They didn’t take the best defenseman in the draft like they probably should have but they did get a really good player in Kirby Dach. He is highly skilled and a big center. He is going to be a main part of the future and the Blackhawks believe he can be one of their best players one day.

It is going to be so awesome to see this veteran core team up with what appears to be the future core. For the next few years, while the veterans are still contributing, this has the potential to be so fun to watch. Eventually the future guys are going to have to completely take over, but for now, they are going to coincide with each other and that should lead to the postseason.