Blackhawks: Did Stan Bowman build his “last dance” roster?

The Chicago Blackhawks are doing their best to put together another run with Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane for the Stanley Cup. Has Stan Bowman done a good job constructing his best last dance effort to win it all?

The Blackhawks will be entering this season looking better than the past few seasons.

Adding Tyler Johnson, Jujhar Khaira, Seth Jones, Caleb Jones, Jake McCabe, and Marc-Andre Fleury are not moves this team makes unless they expect to be better than in years past. To me, this looks like Stan Bowman doing his best to give his players that have been here since the beginning of his tenure as general manager, Toews and Kane, the best chance at winning it all again before their contracts run out.

So yes I would say that this is the Blackhawks’ last dance group. I think this little window will run for the next two seasons, the last two seasons with Toews and Kane under contract. Then hopefully the two re-sign for less, but if they do decide to walk away it should come after them at least playing for a chance at the cup instead of just being a part of a rebuild.

The Blackhawks’ moves this offseason made them more competitive, and also rose the bar for what to expect from the group. Just having hope and having a team that is expected to win every night, not because of an upset but because they have the skill to do it will be a nice change of pace for a Blackhawks team that has struggled since getting swept by the Nashville Predators.

At one point it looked like losing a series in a sweep was impossible with Toews and Kane, now it almost seems impossible to make it into the postseason. This season could change that.

The last dance for the Chicago Bulls was them winning that sixth championship with Michael Jordan and company. For the Blackhawks with Toews and Kane, I think their last dance is just making sure that they end their career with this team playing competitive hockey again. With some of the superstars the team added I think we could be seeing some fun times ahead in Chicago!