Chicago Blackhawks insider cautions against current tank job

The Chicago Blackhawks are trying to rebuild by stockpiling assets and young players. They’re not signing veterans, and they’re not really making trades to try and add talent. Thus far, the last few years have been exclusively about the draft. One insider isn’t sure that’s the wisest move.

Mark Lazerus of The Athletic answered a fan’s question about this, saying, “I’d argue that no team in the salary-cap era has won the Stanley Cup by actively tanking. The closest one would be the 2010 Blackhawks, but organizational incompetence isn’t quite the same thing as intentionally losing. Sure, you need a couple of big names at the top of the lineup, and the draft is an excellent way to get there. But no team successfully builds exclusively through the draft. Not those Blackhawks. Not these Florida Panthers. Not anyone. At some point, you have to start trying.”

Drafting well is just one piece of the puzzle, and it seems to be what Chicago has done over the last few years. Connor Bedard, Frank Nazar, and Anton Frondell could all be cornerstones. But they can’t be the only players on a team.

“The Blackhawks have tanked harder than any team has tanked since maybe the 1983-84 Pittsburgh Penguins. And with Chicago GM Kyle Davidson making an absurd 11 first-round picks in the last four drafts, and possibly Gavin McKenna waiting next summer, maybe I’ll look foolish in the long run,” Lazerus admitted. “Wouldn’t be the first time. But given how disastrous other full guts have gone (hello, Buffalo and Detroit!), all I can hear in my head is Tobias Fünke saying, ‘But it might work for us.'”

This sort of rebuild hasn’t really gone well in the modern NHL, but GM Kyle Davidson is doing it at a rate previously unseen. If all the players can gel and develop, then he’ll end up with a very talented, cheap roster, but it still won’t be, in Lazerus’ eyes, enough to really get into title conversations again.