Four or five summers from now on, the Connor Bedard’s name will likely be etched on the Stanley Cup.
Of course, he will win the Connecticut Trophy, and of course, Artyom Levshunov plays 30 minutes of hero games every night in the back end after a truly ridiculous playoff run by Michael Misa and Frank Nazar. Kevin Korchinski will increase points as his top-to-couple, and Sam Rinzel will also illuminate it. Alex Vlasic’s work as a closing guard will be a legend. The second line of Nick Lardis, Sacha Boisvert and Oliver Moore will put those Blackhawks matchups, forcing opposing coaches to pick up poison.
Man, who can forget the damage Samuel Savoie, Landon Slaggert and Marek Vanacker have caused to the newly named hair, bringing energy to the team and fans?
It can definitely happen.
Kyle Davidson relied on it, gaining a reputation on it, testing Chicago’s patience with it. Davidson sold Danny Wirtz in the plan to make the franchise and rebuild it through the NHL draft, and that’s exactly what Davidson did.
Eight first-round picks in the past three seasons. There are two more this year. There were two more in the year after that. Davidson’s tank failed, which is always an interesting footnote, but anyway, the ping-pong fell down, lowering him to the heart of Bedard. The rest are ruthless and lack of sensibility. Davidson’s vision is as clear as any general manager in the game, and he keeps going.
That’s how professional sports teams work these days, especially in the Salary Cap League. When things are not going well, you blow up and start over. That’s how it works.
The problem is, it didn’t work. Not in the NHL. Not in the upper limit era. not yet. Buffalo Saber blew it up in an attempt to tank for Connor McDavid and will miss the playoffs for the 14th season in a row. Detroit Red Wings were shocked through the draft and made some savvy draft picks that worked well and had no playoffs after eight long seasons, scratching and clawing became the eighth seed of the East. The Edmonton Oilers ranked fourth in five seasons and won the most talented player of the game ever, until last spring they reached the real controversy – they didn’t reach the real controversy 14 years after drafting McDavid and Taylor Hall.
The Blackhawks are eight years from their last real playoff appearance, and are about the same distance from the next one.
On Saturday, Davidson traded Seth Jones, one of his three best players to the Florida Panthers because Jones could never lose again. Davidson has performed relatively well in this deal — leaving goalkeeper Spencer Knight to keep only $2.5 million in Jones’ massive contract each year — but it’s still another deal that makes the Blackhawks significantly worse. Always take one step forward and two steps backward.
Now let’s take a look at the team that acquired Jones. When Bill Zito took over General Motors in Florida, the Panthers were still the league’s laughter. They did not win the playoff series in 25 years. There are mid- and senior players in their 20s in the lineup. They were stuck.
Florida Black Panther GM Bill Zito Houist 2024 Stanley Cup. (Bruce Bennett/Getty Image)
But Zito didn’t remove it. He did not rebuild the Black Panther. he Reshape them. He used every tool, namely transaction, free agent, exempt wires – to rebuild the aircraft while it is still in the air. Within four years, the Panthers became the Stanley Cup champion, a model’s franchise and a league’s jealousy.
Check out how the championship team was built. Zito became one of the toughest industries in modern NHL history, landing on Matthew Tkachuk. He saw players who hadn’t reached their potential yet, selling Sam Reinhart, Sam Bennett, Brandon Montour and Eetu Luostarinen. He was signed in free agents, with Carter Verhaeghe, Evan Rodrigues and Oliver Ekman-Larsson. He found gold on the exempt wires and picked up Gustav Forsling – abandoned by the Vancouver Canucks, the Blackhawks and the Carolina Hurricanes – watching him become one of the best defensemen in the league. He played first-round picks in 2022 and 2024. In 2024. In 2025. In 2026. The only key player who passed the draft has arrived: Aleksander Barkov (2nd place in 2013), Aaron Ekblad (1st in 2014) and Anton Lundell (2020).
Of course, this is not easy, and of course there is some luck. Of course, Zito didn’t see abandoning the player he was. After six unobtrusive seasons at Buffalo, no one in Reinhart saw a 57-goal season. He did all of this, like Sergei Bobrovsky’s $10 million hat, to knock him down, an albatross who ended up flying. What Zito did was very difficult.
But what Davidson is doing may be more difficult.
Davidson has the opportunity to do this faster to make fans suffer all this. 2021-22 Blackhawks have Alex Debrincat, 23, and Brandon Hagel, 23. They have a 26-year-old Jones and a 24-year-old Dylan Strome. They gave Patrick Kane 92 points.
Now? Debrincat, who is on the verge of his fourth goal-scoring season with the Detroit Red Wings. Hagel is with Tampa Bay Lightning, a thriving superstar who enjoyed his second 30-goal season and the first game of each game. Strome scored 59 points in 60 games with the Washington Capitals, riding a shotgun and riding a center in Alex Ovechkin. Kane has earned more points over the past two seasons than every Blackhawks player outside of Bedard, despite playing only 100 games.
That’s more than in Florida when Zito took over. But Debrincat and Hagel are too old (although Zito took over one year younger than Barkov and Ekblad when he was in the process). Bedard is so important. Drafts are the only way forward. Demolition is the only way.
Of course, in hindsight, all this is stupid, maybe stupid. There are few reasons why GMs are willing to be as bold as Zito. It usually ends with shooting. If Davidson tries to bypass that time with young stars and Kane, then the Blackhawks will be trapped in a muddy mid-term over the past few years, just like in the Stanley Cup final.
But both of these situations sound good compared to the Blackhawks over the past four years, which could be the reason for driving Jones out of the city in the coming years, and he’s happy to be in the city first.
The work done is done, but it doesn’t have to be done. Davidson has become aggressive and has been working hard to win for a long time. Yes, he ran in Jake Guentzel last summer, but he didn’t fall. He somehow had to convince Mikko Rantanen or Mitch Marner to sign up for Bedde this summer for seven years. or Wyatt Johnston or Noah Dobson or Evan Bouchard with an offer. Or packed up some of the countless drafts and young players he has accumulated to land on ready-made up-and-comers.
or all of the above. This is what Zito will do. That’s what Zito did. This works.
It’s time to be bold. It’s time to get creative. It’s time to start winning again. Because the current path is not only incredible; it is extremely unlikely to work. History shows us this. Aspiring to be a Florida Black Panther is better at risk than being a Buffalo Sabre.
(Top photo by Seth Jones: Bill Smith/NHLI by Getty Images)
