3 dream defenseman for the Chicago Blackhawks to target in free agency

Last season the Chicago Blackhawks faced many challenges in the inaugural season of the "Connor Bedard Era." You can point to the glut of injuries, lack of scoring, general lack of depth, and inexperience throughout the lineup as the reasons for the Hawks' abysmal record.

However, I will be focusing on a particular issue that this team faced last season and look at ways that the team can address the problem. Today we will be discussing the lack of quality depth defenseman in the Hawks organization, and the need to add a versatile veteran defenseman this offseason.

Our own Ethan Gawronski recently published an article discussing three realistic free agents for the Hawks to target, and I highly recommend reading that one! His inclusion of Matt Roy as a target makes a ton of sense and he is a guy I would love to see on the Hawks. However, I will be looking at three "less than realistic" defensemen to target because why not shoot for the moon and land amongst the stars... "Stars"... It's called foreshadowing ladies and gentlemen...

Lets briefly explain what went wrong on defense for the Blackhawks last season.

Obviously, injuries played a role as both Seth Jones and Connor Murphy missed significant time. However, the injuries only exposed a deeper issue with Kyle Davidson's roster construction in my opinion. Davidson relied far too heavily on the development of young players last season as depth for the team.

While this strategy worked wonderfully in the case of Alex Vlasic, who consistently was the Hawks' best true defenseman last season, it was a greater struggle for Kevin Korchinski as he adjusted to the rigors of a full NHL season.

Furthermore, the defensive "depth" of Jared Tinordi and Nikita Zaitsev was wildly underwhelming. While you can argue that those guys only played prominent roles due to injury, I still believe that most teams build into their roster construction the possibility of injuries, and Kyle Davidson swung and missed in this area.

The defensive depth must be better next season, and I will briefly highlight three possible free agents who could immediately improve the Hawks' defense and aid the younger players like Nolan Allen, Wyatt Kaiser, and Ethan Del Mastro as they transition into more prominent roles on the Hawks' defense.