The results the Blackhawks have experienced on the ice thus far this season have been bad. There are layers of responsibility for the disastrous start. The players haven’t performed well — or stayed healthy. And the coaches have left a lot to be desired.
But there’s one group of people responsible for assembling the players who are then put into a lineup by the coaches. That’s the front office. And the person held responsible for putting together this edition of the Blackhawks’ roster and coaching staff is the general manager.
Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson spoke with the media for a long time on Wednesday afternoon. I’ve already shared what he had to say about being active in the trade market and some of the other significant messaging (specifically fixing the defense).
There were some questions that were pointed directly at him and his performance since assuming the role of permanent general manager of the Chicago Blackhawks. And, more specifically, the job he did in building the roster this year and the messaging he’s conveyed to fans over the course of his rebuild to date.
Chicago Blackhawks defenseman Bowen ByramDavidson was asked if he misjudged the degree to which he needed to insulate his young players over the offseason. He noted that the blue line group has been in a tough spot with Bowen Byram missing most of the early regular season because of injury. But he said yes, and owned it.
“I certainly think there’s an element of that which specifically we probably, I don’t want to say took for granted, but perhaps miscalculated a little bit on where we would look if we had one of our relied upon defensemen go down,” Davidson said. “Again, injuries happen, that’s not an excuse, but it is a reality of when you have young players that could we have benefited from one more veteran? It’s very possible we may have.
“And so that’s part of the evaluation process and honest candor that we’re having internally that if we were to do things a little differently, how would that have gone? And you never really want to build your roster planning for someone to miss a significant amount of time. But the reality is that it’s happened and we’ve probably found a little bit of difficulty because of that. So that’s the reality of it, yes.”
Unfortunately for Davidson (and, if we’re honest, his players and coaching staff), when you talk about expectations being as high as competing for a playoff berth to start the season, fans buy in. And we’re into another year of the rebuild timeline with more of the players drafted by this regime being on the NHL roster and playing every night.
Davidson was asked about whether or not he feels the messaging might be getting… stale, with the selling of hope every season only to get the same results in the standings. He circled back to the reality that this is a step of the development timeline that happens.
“I don’t have a concern about that because in the end,” he said. “I think where we are is — again, we have to accept the moment that we’re in here with our record — but we also have to recognize that we do have some very, very talented young players that, again, we have full confidence are going to be, and in some cases are foundational pieces on a very good NHL team. Now, we need to work with them to continue to improve as they enter their prime. And a lot of what we would talk about in the past was working with the prospects, yes, but entering the NHL and developing and turning into an impact player in the NHL is another step of that, right? Yes, it’s all under the umbrella of development, but there’s different stages to this. And so we’re entering a stage where we’re asking a lot of some of these players, specifically down the middle and the back end. Again, these are not excuses. This is just the reality of where we’re at.”
(As an aside: if the messaging in August and September was “we’re entering a stage where we’re asking a lot of some of these players, and there are going to be some rough nights” there might be more compassion from the fans and media…) Chicago Blackhawks center Frank Nazar celebrates after scoringFinally, Davidson was asked to make a case for his rebuild — again. Is he the guy to see this thing thru? And where can fans see the progress of the program?
“Go back four years ago and that first training camp and the players that we had in that training camp,” he said. “There’s very few left in the NHL from that training camp, certainly left in the organization. And so what we’ve done over the last four years is a significant flip of the whole, not only roster, but reserve list. In that time, I think I can confidently say that we’ve — as a group, this is not just myself, but as a group — we’ve acquired through the draft and other means some very, very meaningful foundational pieces that are going to be great to elite players in this league, which will carry this team upwards as these younger players reach their prime.
“And you know what, that path is certainly not linear. It’s not easy, but with the maturation of young players and the players we’ve drafted and bringing in the league, we have to get through these rough times that they’re experiencing in their development in order to get to the other side and they’ll have that under their belt. They’ll have that experience to draw from because we’ve got a lot of players that are going to be great players in this league, help this team win and help this team be very good for a long time. We still fully believe that while also recognizing the moment we’re in.
“Through that, though, yes, these players have to keep developing and enter their prime. That’s not the only way that we continue to get better. We’re going to remain relentless in our pursuit of players and people that can help us and these young players take the next step and continue to build towards the team we want to be. And so that’s been the plan since the outset. That’s the plan moving forward and we’re going to work every day to either put our players here in the best situation to succeed, give them what they need to develop and also do our part externally to continue to improve the roster both now and in the future.”
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