Now comes the hard part for Blackhawks’ GM Kyle Davidson

The NHL trade deadline was quite emotional for Chicago Blackhawks fans. The greatest player to wear a Blackhawks sweater was traded when general manager Kyle Davidson sent Patrick Kane to the New York Rangers.

It is not easy to see Kane wear another team’s colors. Yet, with the franchise’s on-ice decline since 2017, it was necessary to move a beloved player.

Kyle Davidson also traded center Max Domi, winger Sam Lafferty, and defensemen Jack Johnson and Jake McCabe. In addition, he made some other minor trades to build up depth in the farm system.

Kyle Davidson has officially completed the 2022-23 teardown of the Chicago Blackhawks. Last summer, he traded away Alex DeBrincat and Kirby Dach while he let Dylan Strome and Dominik Kubalik walk in free agency.

Now is the hard part for Kyle Davidson as he rebuilds the Chicago Blackhawks.

Trading away players is the easy part. Now he must show he can get players that are talented enough to make the playoffs.

Davidson did not acquire any major prospects. It was going to be hard to get a top-tier prospect back.

Patrick Kane would only agree to waive his no-movement clause if he was traded to the Rangers so that limited the return Davidson wanted. Lafferty and McCabe had value since their deals have another year left at a cheap price.

Lafferty is still a bottom-six player and McCabe is not a true top-pair defenseman so they were not going to motivate a team to give up a high-ceiling young player. Davidson collected draft picks instead.

Getting a lot of draft picks spread out through 2026 allows Davidson to pick his prospects. He already started the process in last year’s draft when he selected defenseman Kevin Korchinski and forward Frank Nazar in the first round.

Korchinski is tearing up the WHL and he flashed his immense potential in the preseason.

https://twitter.com/NHL/status/1575275569041883143?s=20

Nazar missed some time this year at Michigan with an injury but has played well since he started skating for the Wolverines. The Athletic ranked the Chicago Blackhawks system as the fifth best in the NHL.

Still, Davidson and his front office staff have a lot of work to do to improve the team at the NHL level. His life will get a lot easier if the Chicago Blackhawks win the NHL Draft Lottery and the right to pick generational talent, Connor Bedard.

After the teardown, Davidson needs to find players to add to the current roster who will probably be a part of the next great Blackhawks team.

Lukas Reichel, Isaak Phillips, Philipp Kurashev, and Seth Jones (only because of his contract) are probably the only players that you can say for certain will be helping the Chicago Blackhawks contend for a playoff spot in two to four years. Some players at the AHL Level could help the Hawks get back to being respectable.

Arvid Söderblom showed during his time with the big club that he can be the goalie of the future. Alex Vlasic and Alec Regula could also be in the mix to make an impact at the NHL level.

Otherwise, Davidson still has to sign prospects like Wyatt Kaiser, Drew Commesso, and Ethan Del Mastro to entry-level contracts.

He can build up a great prospect pool but it will mean nothing if he cannot sign them before the team’s draft rights expire.

The good thing is he has the draft capital to move up in a loaded 2023 NHL Entry Draft to grab another impact player on top of the likely top-five pick he will have. He could also move some draft assets down the road to acquire an elite player.

One thing the trade deadline moves did was make the Hawks completely irrelevant in Chicago. Becoming irrelevant is the downside of tearing down a roster in the manner Davidson had to go about doing it.

Hopefully, he is up to the challenge of building the Chicago Blackhawks back up to prominence.