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3 reasons it is hard to be patient with the Chicago Blackhawks' rebuild

The standards were supposed to be raised. However, the start of the season shows this team needs another top-five draft pick to get back to being competitive.

By Todd Welter |
/ Isaiah J. Downing-Imagn Images
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The standards were supposed to be raised this season for the Chicago Blackhawks.

Instead, the Hawks continue to look like the same bottom-of-the-standings team we have seen the past three seasons.

It would be nice to see some movement up the standings at this point in the rebuild. Instead, the Hawks are at the top of the Tankathon.com/NHL standings, much like they were for most of the 2022-23 season.

The free-agent additions of Tyler Bertuzzi, Teuvo Teravainen, and other veterans were supposed to at least move the Blackhawks away from leading the NHL Draft Lottery odds. Instead, this need to score perfect goals and not putting together a full 60 minutes of well-executed hockey has the Hawks off to another terrible start.

Being a dead-last team is one of three reasons it is getting hard to be patient with the team's rebuild.

You would like to see the free-agent moves made in the offseason move the Blackhawks out of the standing's cellar. The team was a long shot to make the playoffs, but you would like to see them at this point of the rebuild to stop leading Tankathon.

At some point, it would be nice to see a few more victories than last season to see some verified, measurable progress.

Instead, the only progress made is the Blackhawks are losing games by a closer margin. However, it is still early in the season. The Hawks have shown if they just fire the puck at the net more than try to score one-timers, they can find a path to victory.

Plus, a lot of the players that will be part of the next competitive Hawks' team are either at Rockford, college, or in the juniors. This year's top pick for the Blackhawks, Artyom Levshunov, just started playing for the IceHogs after missing time with a foot injury.

Frank Nazar is tearing up the AHL to start the season. He is making a case to get back to Chicago as soon as possible.

So, while it is hard to watch the Hawks start another season at the bottom of the NHL standings, the patience being given to the young talent's development is another reason the Hawks are still at the bottom of the standings.

It would be nice to see Nazar get his lessons at the NHL, especially given his offensive production and the team's struggles with the second-line center. Then again, we saw Kevin Korchinski take his lumps last year and it was clear, he could have benefitted from some time in Rockford last year had he been eligible to go there.

Now that he is with the IceHogs, he is starting to understand his immense offensive gifts and refine his defensive game at the same time.

Head coach Luke Richardson is not giving the young players he has up with the team enough runway.

There is a difference between holding players accountable, rewarding players for strong play, and then just tinkering for the sake of tinkering. It is something Richardson still must figure out.

Scratching Philipp Kurashev for a poor night might have been the equivalent of taking a flamethrower to kill an ant hill.

Lukas Reichel has shown he can play well on the fourth line. It has been enough to see if he can still reach his ceiling of being an elite top-line player. Instead, he was given a night on the top line and then sent back to the bottom line.

It would be nice to see Richardson give Reichel a month to get enough data to know if he is nothing more than a fourth-line player.

Ryan Donato is off to a great start, but he is 29 and might not be with the team after this season. Yet, he is getting bumped up to the first line. He has earned more ice time, but it is coming at the expense of not getting enough data on seeing if Reichel is finally starting to get it.

Also, this shuffling of lines feels like he is doing it as just a response to any defeat. Sometime commitment might be better than bailing.

That is why you have to be concerned if Richardson is the coach capable of taking the Blackhawks not only from rock bottom to competitive but also from competitive to playoff winner.

However, the expectations may have been raised; he is still not being asked to take the team to the playoffs. This team is far from a finished product either.

It just would be nice to see his line shuffling look less like a reaction to a defeat and more like finding the right combinations and giving the youth some runway to see if they can thrive.

How does all this losing impact superstar Connor Bedard?

This is probably an overreaction. The chances of Bedard demanding his way out of town if the Hawks keep losing are slim.

You would like to make sure there is no chance of him demanding a shorter-term second contract. He is going to sign his second contract with the Blackhawks.

It makes too much financial sense, plus the Hawks would match any offer sheet. He could tell the Hawks that he is willing to sacrifice some dollars for a deal with less years if he starts to think this franchise cannot deliver winning.

There are rumblings he is growing frustrated with the team losing. He has been more vocal and demonstrative in showing his frustrations this season.

Since this is not the NFL or NBA, he cannot just pout or power his way out of Chicago, he can give the Hawks less time to prove they can build a winning team around him by passing on a long-term deal in his next contract.

However, he hopefully understands a lot of the players that should help him win down the road are not on the roster. Oliver Moore would be a wonderful linemate to skate with Bedard and he is still developing his game at the University of Minnesota.

The Blackhawks have plenty of other young prospects getting time at the juniors or college that should help the Hawks get back to the playoffs. That is why this is probably an overreaction. Just like getting impatient with how the Hawks are playing can be when you take into account that this is still in the developing and acquiring the players stages of the rebuild.

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