We’ve now closed the books on the 2025-26 NHL season, which makes it time to start looking back over the course of 82 games for the Chicago Blackhawks to take stock of how things went. It was Jeff Blashill’s first season behind the bench in Chicago, and there’s a lot to unpack.
When Blackhawks chairman Danny Wirtz spoke with the media during the first intermission of Wednesday night’s season finale, he said he liked what he’s seen from Blashill this year.
“I feel really good about the way he’s approached this,” Wirtz said. “From the very beginning we knew he was a teacher. He was going to really approach teaching those winning habits. And I think he had his work cut out for him with the amount of young players. But I think he’s done a really good job. I think the players have bought into him as a coach, his system. And again, that culture in the locker room, he’s very much a big part of that and really getting these players to work together and to try to make the most out of each other.”
Blashill spent his first year in Chicago with an evolving roster that finished the regular season the youngest in the league. His oldest defenseman was 24. He’s had players miss time because of injury that impacted the team’s performance. And he lost most of he veteran leadership at the trade deadline.
All of that puts together a complex package to evaluate for Year One of Blashill’s tenure in Chicago. Let’s get into the good, the bad and the ugly from the 2025-26 season for the Blackhawks’ head coach.
The Good
Blashill has been incredibly self-aware the entire season. He understood the assignment he was handed from the first day on the job and stayed the course, sometimes painfully. This season was about development in Chicago, and Blashill has been mindful of that from the jump.
The first thing I appreciate about Blashill’s first season as the head coach of the Chicago Blackhawks is that he’s stayed married to the plan. He has frequently cited their internal analytics vs. what we can look at and over-analyze as fans and media; it’s important to remember that there are things the organization has been watching more closely than wins and losses — even if that hasn’t tracked with the vocal opinions on social media.
Blashill’s willingness to experiment with his lineup down the stretch of a season that didn’t end where anyone wanted it to should also benefit the Blackhawks long term. He’s mixed up his lineup a lot in the final games of the regular season to see how young guys performed with different linemates and in different roles.
A great example is Anton Frondell moving to center after spending most of the season as a wing in the SHL. If he can be a bigger, more physical defensively-responsible center, that gives the Blackhawks more length in the lineup and more dangerous centers.
There have been areas where the Blackhawks excelled, even in a season with more losses than wins in the box score. The penalty kill was outstanding, and the drop-off after the trade deadline wasn’t as significant as we may have thought it would be.
Skating some of his young players in sheltered roles afforded them time to continue growing in the NHL. Looking at the positive results from defensemen Ethan Del Mastro and Kevin Korchinski late in the season is an example of putting young guys in a position to succeed.
The final thing I recognize as a positive from Blashill this season is that he’s kept the long game in mind through the good times and the bad. He’s frequently referenced that you’re never as good as your great moments and (hopefully) not as bad as your lowest moments. Again: this season was about development. And he’s remained focused on the process.
Sam Navarro-Imagn ImagesThe Bad
There have been some times where we saw struggles from the Blackhawks that, to the outside, weren’t addressed soon enough. There have been other times where there were some moves that made us collectively scratch our head.
While lineup experimentation and keeping some young guys in sheltered roles has largely been a positive, it would have been nice to see Nick Lardis‘ role elevated sooner. There were still going to be mistakes — and will be still next year — but his offensive ability could have made a larger impact sooner with opportunity.
Some of the areas that fans will identify as “bad” on Blashill and his coaching staff should also be attributed to roster construction and the development that tries our patience. And, again, some of those come back to lineup experimentation with next year and the long game in mind. Fans have complained about Ryan Donato and Teuvo Teräväinen being in bottom-six roles either too frequently or not enough. There have been comments about changing in the defensive pairings. And fans are apparently always going to complain about Arvid Söderblom.
Kevin Ng-Imagn ImagesThe Ugly
André Burakovsky staying with Connor Bedard as long as he did will remain one of the biggest issues everyone will have with Year One of Blashill’s tenure. While some of us might be able to recognize that Burakovsky was serving as a placeholder for the next wave of talent to join Bedard on that line, his struggles were enough that a demotion felt weeks overdue when it finally happened.
As other players like Colton Dach (before he was traded), Landon Slaggert, Sacha Boisvert and Ryan Greene were scratched at times for a variety of reasons, Burakovsky has largely remained in the lineup. For as much of a positive as the long game being front of mind has been a good thing, allowing Boisvert to learn from failures in the NHL after he signed would have benefitted him and the program more than Burakovsky providing additional evidence that a buyout might be the best path forward this summer.
Blashill’s Overall Evaluation
The record is not what anyone wanted. The way the season crashed to a close with a sub-optimal homestand left fans barking for more. And there have certainly been frustrations throughout a long first season for Blashill in Chicago.
The next step for Blashill is going to be tied to the next step for the organization. With all of the lineup experimenting late in the season, findings a group that works in training camp when the team is fully healthy and has this season as experience to grow from will be the true test for the players, coaching staff and front office.
When the Blackhawks have a full complement of healthy skaters, how does Blashill evaluate his centers? Where do Greene and Oliver Moore fit? Do we see Frank Nazar get run on the wing at some point? Who is the answer on the top line with Bedard to fully unlock his potential? What happens when Roman Kantserov arrives?
What do his defensive pairs look like with a better understanding of the capabilities of Wyatt Kaiser and Louis Crevier? What do they do with Korchinski and Del Mastro? And how do they get the most out of Artyom Levshunov?
The good news is there are a lot of potentially positive questions being asked at this point in the Blackhawks’ building process. And this was the first season in which we started to see a proof of concept from general manager Kyle Davidson’s draft-and-develop approach.
Next year, the Blackhawks will still be young. The 2025-26 season will be painful until training camp, when the players will take what they learned and put it into practice on the ice together again. While development will still be part of the path forward, how Blashill adjusts and the team improves will tell us what the long-term value has been of this season.
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