3 reasons why this offseason will be make or break for Blackhawks GM Kyle Davidson

Chicago Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson will officially introduce his second full-time head coaching hire tomorrow. For his sake, Davidson better hope he got it right by hiring Jeff Blashill.

If the second go-around as a head coach does not go well for Blashill, it should cost Davidson his job. Davidson has already struck out on his first full-time pick at head coach, and his two temporary choices did nothing to distinguish either.

So, if this hire fails, Davidson should not be allowed a third crack, despite the third time sometimes being the charm.

Hiring Blashill is one of three reasons this is a make-or-break offseason for Davidson.

Hiring a retread is nothing new in the NHL.

However, Blashill feels like a letdown after Davidson put all his efforts into trying to get David Carle to leave the college game. When Carle decided to stay at the University of Denver, Davidson did not react quickly enough to pivot to a better option and hire Mike Sullivan.

With other exciting options on the market, it feels like Davidson settled on Blashill. Although there is an opportunity for this to home run hire. It just comes with risks.

Blashill is a solid hire who has been through a rebuild before. That is why his hiring makes sense. However, he never took the Red Wings from rebuilding to winning, and that is why the risk of being a failure comes into play.

He has his development success stories, such as Dylan Larkin becoming a superstar. That should provide some confidence that Blashill can get Connor Bedard and Frank Nazar to that level, too.

Blashill cannot just be a hire brought in to teach the youngsters how to play better and then get out of the way for a better coach. If that was the case, you might as well have brought back Trent Yawney or just stuck with Anders Sorenson.

When you hire a retread like Blashill, the hope is to develop the young talent and then complete some unfinished business, like lead a rebuilding team to the playoffs.

He needs to raise the baby Blackhawks into full-grown winners. Otherwise, he is just a more experienced Luke Richardson. The fan base is growing restless of the head coach being a carousel of failures.

At some point, this team has to emerge from this rebuild, and Davidson is betting that Blashill can keep this phase feeling like it will last an eternity. That is why there is not much margin for error.

If Blashill cannot guide the Blackhawks to the playoffs within the next two years, then Davidson does not deserve another head coaching hire.

The team's salary cap space gives the Blackhawks a chance to sign a rebuild timeline-accelerating free agent.

Whether you are for pursuing top free agent Mitch Marner or not, the Blackhawks will have over $30 million in cap space, according to Spotrac, to upgrade the roster.

That is enough money to get this rebuild's version of Marian Hossa. If the Hawks strike out on Marner, at least get this rebuild's version of Martin Havlat (except hope that player skates in more games).

Davidson must get an impact player or two worthy of skating among the top six. If he wants to spread out his cap resources, he has to do better than what happened last offseason when he brought back Teuvo Teräväinen and added Todd Bertuzzi.

They were both just okay.

Okay is not going to cut it this offseason, not when Marner, along with Nikolaj Ehlers or Brock Boeser, are available on the market. This is the offseason to no longer be cautious with the cap space.

This is a chance to accelerate the rebuild's timeline and not tank for the off chance of winning the NHL Draft Lottery next year for the right to draft Gavin McKenna.

There is a chance to add an impact forward in the NHL Draft with the No. 3 pick.

The Blackhawks once again head into the draft with a top-five pick and a ton of other premium picks. The one thing you can say Davidson has done well is acquire picks and draft a lot of promising players.

At some point, these picks have to bear fruit.

Hopefully, that means these prospects lead the Blackhawks back to being competitive.

Davidson does have at least one more opportunity to add an impact player to do that with the No. 3 pick.

Even if the ideal prospect, Michael Misa, does not fall to three, the Hawks sit in a position to get a forward talented enough to skate with Bedard and Nazar.

With all the draft capital the team has, maybe Davidson can entice the New York Islanders to swap the top pick to go down to three, and the Hawks could get Misa.

The added bonus of this pick is Hawks have an opportunity to make up for not drafting Ivan Demidov last year. They need to come away with a forward who can provide some scoring power and some desperately needed size.

Most importantly, they need to get a player who can raise the team's level of play that Davidson failed to put together last offseason, despite declaring it was time to hold this franchise to a higher standard.