Reasons to have hope regarding the Chicago Blackhawks

If the season had ended a month ago this would be a very different article.

I would be telling you how desperately the Hawks need to upgrade their top six forwards. I would be preaching aggression to Kyle Davidson to consider trading his first-round pick this year to get Connor Bedard legitimate help on his wing right away. I would be telling you how the defense again needs to be overhauled, and how Seth Jones should be traded in the summer....

But things change quickly in the NHL.

Seth Jones WAS traded mid-season for a shockingly good return. The coming of Spencer Knight (The Knightman cometh, as Charlie Day of Always Sunny in Philadelphia would say) predicated the arrival of the cavalry.

The Blackhawks youth, who existed in long reads in blog posts and watched in NCAA highlight tapes, are no longer figments of our collective imagination. They are no longer ideas that represent "hope" for the future.

They are living, breathing, skating, and scoring members of the Chicago Blackhawks. And that makes all the difference.

Since that fateful Seth Jones trade, the Hawks have done the following.

• They acquired Spencer Knight, who I believe will be the goalie of the future for the Hawks.
• They called up top prospect Artyom Levshunov, who I believe will be the future number one or two defenseman on this team.
• They called up Kevin Korchinski and Ethan Del Mastro.
• They signed Oliver Moore, Sam Rinzel, Aiden Thompson, and Ryan Greene.

The team that we saw begin the season no longer existed by the last game of the season.

In its place was the core of a future juggernaut, still admittedly in its infancy.

Watching the last month of this season salvaged the idea of the rebuild in the minds of many jaded Hawks fans. Having watched the slop of the pre-trade deadline hawks, it was understandable that questions were beginning to be asked about Kyle Davidson's competency and the direction of the rebuild.