Top 3 ways the NHL 2024 Draft Lottery hurt the Blackhawks

Tougher to attract high-end free agents

While my personal philosophy for rebuilding a team in any sports league involves doing so through the draft and primarily promoting from within, I also understand what kind of benefits a Celebrini-Bedard combo may have had for the Blackhawks. 

Sure, they will be fine in the long run and the rebuild will be fine. But in the ensuing years, players would want to come to Chicago and have played alongside Macklin Celebrini and Connor Bedard. 

They would have wanted to be part of what could have, at the absolute worst, been a team in contention to make deep playoff runs year after year after year. We’re talking about eventually getting to the same level as where the Edmonton Oilers are with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl or the Colorado Avalanche with Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen. 

Of course, only a handful of high-end free agents and solid role players would have signed, given ultimate salary cap restraints. But for years to come, there would have been a lot of demand to play in Chicago, even if that may not have been the case this summer since, as mentioned earlier, there would still be another year of building, even if the Hawks would have likely ended up with more points. 

Sure, this team will be okay building around Bedard, and perhaps the Stanley Cup will return to Chicago multiple times. But the thought of what a Celebrini-Bedard combo would have brought to the Hawks and sooner rather than later might I add, is now something we’ll only be able to dream of.