The Rockford IceHogs must be more successful than the Chicago Blackhawks this season

The Chicago Blackhawks continue to lose games, maybe it should not matter.

The Hawks are 3-6-1 over their past ten games and sit at the top of the Tankathon standings. Those were not the standings the franchise was not hoping to lead this season.

This was supposed to be the season of raised standards. Yet, it looks much like the 2023-24 season. The only difference is the Hawks are losing games because of an impotent offense and not because of an injury-riddled, overmatched roster that had an impotent offense.

Even though the talent was improved slightly in the offseason, the chances of making the playoffs were not great. Plus, a lot of these signings were bridge deals since the most important players for the team's future are either playing at Rockford, still in college, or are at the juniors.

That is why the Rockford IceHogs having success might be more important than the Blackhawks having success this season.

It might just be more important for individual players at the team's AHL affiliate to have success.

That is where foundational players such as Frank Nazar, Kevin Korchinski, Artyom Levshunov, and Drew Commesso are getting ready for the NHL. Plus, key future supporting players like Landon Slaggert, Samuel Savoie, Paul Ludwinski, Gavin Hayes, and Ethan Del Mastro are working on being able to play at the next level.

While the IceHogs are currently 7-9-2, Nazar has 10 goals and 11 assists. That might be the most important thing to happen for this franchise right now.

The hope is the former first-round pick, and one of the team's top-ranked prospects can be the team's long-term second-line center. However, if Connor Bedard gets moved to wing permanently, Nazar could be the long-term first-line center who teams up with Connor to produce a bounty of goals.

Nazar is also being identified as the potential solution to the Hawks' weak offensive attack. He just needs to get better playing away from the puck.

Korchinski was also taken in the first round during the same draft the Hawks took Nazar. Korchinski even got NHL experience last season but had a lot of rookie moments where if he was eligible to play in Rockford during his first season, he would have been there.

Now that he is being given time to develop, he has eight assists, although he is -11. It's not the greatest number for a blueliner, even if it is a poorly calculated stat.

Levshunov was the defenseman the team took with the No. 2 overall pick. After missing some time with a foot injury, he has two goals and six assists in 15 games.

Hopefully, Korchinski and Levshunov develop into top players that will allow the Hawks to form an elite top-two pairing to go along with Alex Vlasic and Seth Jones. The Hawks also have Nolan Allan, Wyatt Kaiser, and Del Mastro in the mix to be the third pairing on the next great Blackhawks team.

Commesso still looks like he is the goalie of the future. Although he is the one prospect to be worried about relative to Nazar, Korchinski, and Levshunov.

Commesso has a 3.37 goals-against average and a .874 save percentage. You would like to see that GAA go down and the save percentage go up.

Other projected foundational players such as Oliver Moore and Sam Rinzel, are still at the University of Minnesota.

Since the current Blackhawks roster has just Connor Bedard (the franchise players) and possibly Lukas Reichel and Philipp Kurashev (although he is trending down) as the players who will likely be part of the next playoff team, the IceHogs having success is likely more important this season.