8 takeaways from the Chicago Blackhawks start to the offseason

The Chicago Blackhawks made some seismic franchise-altering moves before and during the 2022 NHL Entry Draft.

General manager Kyle Davidson traded away 40-goal scorer Alex DeBrincat before the draft started to the Ottawa Senators for a couple of draft picks. He then traded former top-3 pick, Kirby Dach, to the Montreal Canadiens for a first-round pick and a third-round pick.

Finally, Davidson took the contract of goalie Petr Mrazek off the Toronto Maple Leafs’ hands in return for another first-round pick.

The Chicago Blackhawks did more than just tear down this team to the studs. They took a bulldozer to the roster and decided to build up a whole new structure.

New head coach Luke Richardson certainly has his work cut out for him. This was sorely needed although it did mean giving up on a young budding star. It would have been nice to get more than a few pennies on the dollar for DeBrincat but we will get to that later.

The roster makeover continued when the Chicago Blackhawks let Dylan Strome and Dominik Kubalik become unrestricted free agents and walk away with getting nothing in return.

Davidson has to clean up the mess left by the former general manager.

The Blackhawks have been on a painful decline since getting bounced in the first round of the 2017 Stanley Cup playoffs by the Nashville Predators. They were not getting any closer to even sneaking into the playoffs with the roster they had so it was time to rip the team down even if it means the DeBrincat trade could haunt Davidson for years to come.

Former general manager Stan Bowman kept trying to delay the inevitable by acquiring former high picks that needed a change of scenery.

He also traded for former high-profile Blackhawks while giving up a budding superstar in return, or acquired a big-name talent like Seth Jones and Marc Andre-Fleury when younger talent should have been given ice time.

None of those moves worked to get the Chicago Blackhawks closer to even making the playoffs. Bowman further sent the Hawks into decay when he handed a big-money contract for Brent Seabrook’s past performance and not based on the declining performance.

Jonathan Toews, Corey Crawford, and Duncan Keith’s bodies started to betray them and they could no longer produce like we were accustomed to seeing. Marian Hossa’s premature retirement had a bigger impact than anyone could imagine.

It did not help that Bowman traded away nearly a decade’s worth of first-round picks for win-now acquisitions (or reclamation projects).

In reality, Bowman should have blown up the Chicago Blackhawks about four years ago like Davidson just did. He refused and now the Blackhawks find themselves at the bottom of the NHL and they will stay there for a couple more seasons.

Now that Bowman is gone, it is up to Davidson to clean up the mess and undertake a long-scale rebuild to get the Chicago Blackhawks back into playoff contention at some point before this decade ends.