In our bullets on Tuesday morning I joked that the Blackhawks were finally ranked the best in the NHL by someone (it was for the media spread in the press box). But Steven Ellis at Daily Faceoff published his NHL pipeline rankings, and he has the Blackhawks at the top of the list!
The Blackhawks improved from third to first over the past year in Ellis’ rankings.
It's time to rank all 32 NHL prospect pools.Who takes top spot? Which teams improved the most?For @DailyFaceoff: t.co/K9ucNYXBa4
— Steven Ellis (@SEllisHockey) August 25, 2026Ellis lists Anton Frondell, Roman Kantserov and Nick Lardis as the “most notable” prospects in the pipeline. Here’s his summary of the Blackhawks’ collection of talent and why he ranked them No. 1 in the NHL:
At some point, the Blackhawks will finally get out of the basement and turn things around. The club promoted three prospects to full-time NHL duty last year: Sam Rinzel, Artyom Levshunov and Oliver Moore. Were there growing pains? Absolutely. Anything to be concerned about? Not really. Despite those three no longer being prospects, the pipeline is still quite impressive, led by 2025 first-rounder Anton Frondell. Few teams have depth at every position. The Hawks might have just one defender on this list (and some scouts might rank Xavier Villeneuve lower than fifth), but the fact that they’ve churned out some useful options over the past few years is a good sign. We didn’t include Kevin Korchinski in this exercise because of his NHL experience, but we can’t ignore him in Chicago’s system either.
Blackhawks forward Nick LardisBlackhawks Pipeline Rankings Vary
As I’ve stated regularly here — both recently and in the past — the reason I share varying rankings and grades is because different writers and analysts have differing perspectives of players and prospects. And discussing those differences can help us inform our own perspective of where the Blackhawks’ rebuild is at — and where it’s going.
There was a lot of chatter here and elsewhere when Corey Pronman ranked the Blackhawks fourth in the NHL in his pipeline rankings at The Athletic last week. The difference between Ellis’ comments and Pronman’s perspective of the Blackhawks’ pipeline is their opinions of Nick Lardis. Ellis listed him as a notable prospects and ranked him third in the Blackhawks’ pipeline when he wrote up the full system back in mid-July; Pronman couldn’t be bothered to include Lardis in his rankings top 100 prospects drafted outside the first round, much less in his top 156 under-23 players and prospects.
The line in Ellis’ comments about the Blackhawks’ pipeline as a whole that stands out most for me is simple:
“Were there growing pains? Absolutely. Anything to be concerned about? Not really.”
I’ve been preaching that for long enough that there are folks in the comments here that are happily willing to tell me to can it. But it’s true. At this stage of the rebuild, the ups and downs of young players should be expected.
Yes, at some point guys need to find it and become what they can be at the NHL level; development isn’t forever. But it also isn’t linear. And Ellis shows an appreciation for that reality.
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