The Chicago Blackhawks Should Consider Tanking

With the Blackhawks now 0-3, and losing in a dominant fashion in each one, the question stands: time to tank? The Chicago Blackhawks are going nowhere, and they will continue to go nowhere if Stan Bowman and Jeremy Colliton remain with them.

Stan Bowman did nothing of significance to prove he can lead a rebuild. He did a great job (for the most part) from 2010-2017 maintaining a playoff-caliber team but from 2018-current, he’s just been awful.

He fires a legendary coach, second-most wins of all time at the moment, in Joel Quenneville, trades superstar Artemi Panarin for a return that are not even on the team anymore, trades Robin Lehner without any desire to re-sign Corey Crawford, and didn’t get a good return on that trade either.

We instead got Malcolm Subban, a somewhat decent prospect whose name no one knows, and a SECOND ROUND PICK. He didn’t even get a first-round pick from that trade when Robin Lehner should have brought in a first-round pick and a good prospect.

He then signs a coaching staff who are younger than Duncan Keith, (except for Marc Crawford who is actually qualified for the job), should be AHL coaches, and create strategies that rarely work. Stan Bowman may be a good general manager for a contender, but he has no experience in rebuilding a franchise. The Blackhawks need someone else to lead the rebuild.

Tanking might be apart of the Chicago Blackhawks future

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On top of this, he re-signed Jeremy Colliton as the head coach of the team. Colliton would be better off as an assistant coach for the time being but the Blackhawks are rushing him. Stan Bowman wanted to sign his own coach, but we can all see how that went.

His defensive system has multiple holes, but the team he has to coach isn’t good either. This team is not relentless as he wanted them to be. They have been playing with a lack of motivation and work ethic for three straight games. Something here needs to change.

With that said, I’m pretty sure nothing will change. And the way this season has gone so far, it doesn’t look to be getting better any time soon. Should they tank?

YES

It already looks like the ‘Hawks are trying to. The work ethic is lacking and they completely fall apart in the last half of the game. Their “top pairing” defensemen (who should be 3-4 defensemen at best) miss coverage and there’s a puck in the back of their net.

Their goaltenders are lacking fundamentally (but Collin Delia did have a better outing against the Panthers) letting in soft, easy goals and have questionable decision-making. When you openly say that you are tanking and shop the rest of your quality older forwards for draft picks and prospects, no one will think those games are questionable or frustrating. It’s expected.

"The second period has been the Chicago Blackhawks kryptonite so far"

The NHL draft class of 2021 looks to have multiple highly-skilled prospects from ranks 1 to10 who could prove to be franchise superstars. The Chicago Blackhawks are nowhere near a playoff team who can make anything happen, so they should do their best to get the highest pick possible.