Chicago Blackhawks: 3 players who exceeded expectations in 2021

The Chicago Blackhawks had an okay season. It started off really well but they proved to be overachieving. In the latter part of the year, things started to go off the rails. It makes sense because, after the trade deadline, they took a bad roster and made it even worse.

There were, however, some players who exceeded all expectations going into the year. After the way that they played, you can be certain they are going to be ready to go in 2021-22. These are the three most notable players who exceeded expectations:

Alex DeBrincat was a complete superstar for the 2020-21 Chicago Blackhawks.

At this point, it is not a stretch to say that Alex DeBrincat is an elite player. He was on pace for 51 goals this season which would have been near the top. He ended with 32 goals and 24 assists for 56 points in 51 games played. That is a lot of goals for a short season. He is looking like one of the best players to come out of his draft and he was taken in the second round. In fact, he is looking like one of the best pure goal scorers in the National Hockey League.

Why are we saying he exceeded expectations when we knew how talented he was? Well, he wasn’t as good in 2019-20. He was looking like a legit star in his first two seasons but fell off a little bit last year. He had 18 goals which isn’t a bad total but it certainly came short of his 41 in the year prior. Sometimes, expectations are everything. We expect DeBrincat to be a top goal scorer so when he wasn’t, it was disappointing.

Now, he is all the way back. Going into next year, we believe that he is going to be a guy who can get anywhere from 40-50 goals. It will depend a lot on who his linemates are and all of that but you can bet he will be a shooting machine. He deserved to have this huge year, it is just a shame that his team let him down.