Chicago Blackhawks: This is the perfect lineup for the 2020-21 season

Goaltending

Malcolm Subban & Collin Delia

In 2019-20, the Chicago Blackhawks had one of the best goaltending duos in the National Hockey League. Robin Lehner and Corey Crawford masked a lot of issues that the team had in their own end. Lehner was a great free agent signing after having a resurgent season with the New York Islanders the year before. Crawford was also very good after some injury concerns in the two seasons prior to 2019-20. Both guys proved they were still elite and had a lot more left in their NHL careers.

Before anyone knew anything about COVID-19, it was clearly a good decision to trade Robin Lehner as his contract was only for one year. He was traded to the Vegas Golden Knights right before the season shut down. When they returned, the Hawks won the play-in series and then were bounced by Lehner and the Golden Knights. Since the season ended, Lehner inked a long term deal to stay in Vegas.

Meanwhile, we thought Crawford would at least stick around. His contract was up but it just felt like after everything they had been through, they would figure something out. The Hawks decided that they weren’t going to give him the option to return and he walked to the New Jersey Devils.

Now, they have to deal with Malcolm Subban and Collin Delia. Subban came back in the Lehner trade with Vegas. He was a former first-round pick by the Boston Bruins but he never really became the goalie we thought he would. Delia had a few games with the Hawks in the NHL but he was never used during the 2019-20 season.

Now, these two are (most likely) going to form the tandem for the team. It is probably going to be one of the lesser duos in the league but that is what they got. The top free-agent goalies are pretty much all gone so this is probably it. It isn’t ideal and that might make the Hawks worse than they already would have been with Crawford. Hopefully, they (along with the whole team) prove everyone wrong and have a decent year.