Blackhawks recent pipeline ranking drives home a convenient truth

Everyone's getting on board over the Chicago Blackhawks taking another step in their rebuild these days, including The Athletic's Corey Pronman, who recently ranked the Hawks pipeline at No. 2. It's been a long time coming for Chicago fans, and it further drives the point home that this rebuild's about to climb another rung.

We're also seeing a pattern emerge. If you flashback to the early-to-mid 2000s, we saw a lot of bad play in the Windy City. Then came Duncan Keith, Corey Crawford, Jonathan Toews, and Patrick Kane, among others, and they turned the struggling organization into a dynasty.

Not that this current batch of Blackhawks will win thrice in six years, but given their epic pipeline that includes Connor Bedard, Artyom Levshunov, Anton Frondell, Frank Nazar, and Kevin Korchinski rounding out the top five, you got franchise cornerstones here.

Recent ranking should give Chicago Blackhawks fans even more optimism for the future

It's hard to say 'future' these days, because in so many ways, the future has arrived and is here to stay for a while. Bedard, Levshunov, and Nazar are already going to be full-timers, and if Korchinski works his way back into full-time status after an encouraging 2024-25 campaign in Rockford, then watch out.

Sam Rinzel and Oliver Moore were also mentioned in the top 10, and they too can sneak their way onto the big club. That's a core group right there, and there isn't a single player mentioned above who won't play a higher quantity of minutes once they've found their respective strides.

Not only are you hearing optimism from me, but when someone like Pronman ranks your team's pipeline so high, there are a lot of reasons to feel optimistic.

Kyle Davidson needs to avoid pitfalls

I like looking at the Buffalo Sabres as a cautionary tale here. They were a team that had the top pipeline earlier in the decade, only for some of those players to end up elsewhere or falter.

JJ Peterka is the most recent example, who went to the Utah Mammoth in a trade that didn't warrant decent compensation iin return. Dylan Cozens left via trade before that to the Ottawa Senators, and players like Jack Quinn looked like they were living up to their billing until they weren't.

Find ways for this group to stick together as the long-term core

For Davidson, it means identifying and signing the right players long term. Maybe Frank Nazar's one of them, but you all know how I felt about that extension. Still, maybe Davidson's seeing something those of us who are either on the edge or skeptical about the deal didn't.

While the rebuild is climbing, in comes the risk/reward factor. Sabres general manager Kevyn Adams missed the mark here, to the point they may further regress. But with all of that said, Davidson must find a way to keep his core here long term, and hope they keep playing a solid game.

The only way to do that is to be proactive. That was the upside with the Nazar deal. Now, let's see if Nazar lives to the hype and Davidson keeps finding the right talent to bring back.