Mailbag Monday: April Edition - Dylan Strome and Draft Lottery Scenarios

It's April. The playoffs are in 3 weeks. We know the Chicago Blackhawks are a bad team and have been officially eliminated from playoff contention. How many more times and different ways can we describe how bad they are?

Anyways, since I'm quite stumped for writing ideas, why not do another mailbag? As always, thanks for the people who submitted questions, and if you weren't able to, there's always next time.

Dylan Strome has been a hot topic regarding the Blackhawks across the whole season, whether he's been healthy scratched or scoring over a point per game pace. There's also been many articles written by this website on him and it's probably beating a dead horse at this point. I think Kyle Davidson should keep Dylan Strome as a stopgap player before the next wave of young rookies (hopefully) play in Chicago. Strome is 25 years old, probably won't cost too much money when re-signing him, he loves being a Blackhawk and the locker room loves him, which you desperately need during a rebuild. However, Davidson might think differently of Strome than we do.

I'd rather not have the first round pick this year, which would be 7th overall, not taking into consideration any lottery changes for other teams. It'll sting seeing Columbus select a probable top line player with that pick, but that's the reality that this front office and fans of the team will have to face. It'd be better to rip the bandaid off now and have two first round picks each for 2023 and 2024. However, it's my understanding if Chicago wins the draft lottery this year, they have to make that pick. Kyle Davidson doesn't have the option to give that pick to Columbus in order to keep the Blackhawks 2023 first round pick. Either way, if you're picking 1st or 2nd overall this year, you gladly walk up to the podium in Montreal and take Shane Wright or someone like Logan Cooley in those respective spots. Both of those players would really help kickstart the rebuild, particularly Wright. The draft lottery is on Monday, May 16th, so we'll find out then. Another thing, the Minnesota pick from the Fleury trade could become a first round pick, albeit in the late 20s or early 30s, if the Wild make the conference final. Davidson could package some of those seconds and thirds to move into the first, and who's to say they won't make a trade before the draft. Only time will tell.

You can use tankathon.com to look at the lottery odds and do simulations.