Chicago Blackhawks Make Case For Worst Team Of Kane/Toews Era

The Chicago Blackhawks once again shocked the hockey world, like they have so many times since Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane first donned Blackhawks sweaters. The only difference is this time the shocking achievement was an embarrassing first-round sweep that leaves the organization with a lot of questions heading into a long summer.

In the 2007-08 NHL season, there was a newfound sense of hope surrounding the Chicago Blackhawks for the first time since the early 90s. Two promising rookies in Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane joined the team and immediately left their mark. The team missed the playoffs that year, but Blackhawks fans were about to witness the best decade of hockey in Chicago’s long history.

A decade that saw the Blackhawks make the conference finals five times, winning three times, also saw them bring home three championships. The era has had memorable moments such as a 24-game point streak that revitalized hockey not only in Chicago, but in the United States as well coming off a disastrous lockout.

It’s a period that has seen general manager Stan Bowman retool and revamp a championship-caliber team with his back against the salary cap wall time and again when everyone said he couldn’t.

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Maybe this time the naysayers were right, though. Maybe the cap wall finally squeezed Bowman’s organizational wallet too thin in the Blackhawks’ first-round playoff exit against Nashville on Thursday.

Maybe Toews has hit and passed his peak after a second straight sub-par season in which the captain just did not look like the dominant two-way center we’re used to. After filling holes with NHL-ready farm players for so long, maybe the organizational reserves were depleted. Has legendary head coach Joel Quenneville lost the room?

There are so many questions this organization and its players will be left thinking about this long summer. So many nights spent wondering what could have been for a 50-win regular-season team that made a remarkable late-season comeback to not only win the division, but the entire conference.

But those 50 wins are for naught, and it may not be too much of a stretch to say this is the worst Blackhawks team since the dark days ended with Kane and Toews’ arrival, worse than even the ’08 team that missed the playoffs entirely.