NEWSLETTER
Before we put the 2021 season behind us, Blackhawks GM and President of Hockey Operations Stan Bowman has to have the final say on everything from how he views the year that just happened to what his vision is for the future. After all, this season should probably be categorized as a success for Chicago, given the circumstances they were handed.
And for that, we turn to the DFO Rundown, where Bowman joined Jason Gregor and Frank Seravalli to discuss the 2021 season, where the Blackhawks go from here, and much more (including an awesome story about he and Patrick Kane’s relationship from Kane’s rookie year). I highly suggest checking out the full interview.
A brand new episode of The DFO Rundown is here!
Today on the pod, @JasonGregor & @frank_seravalli broke down the insane week involving the New York Rangers before getting to a great chat with Blackhawks GM Stan Bowman! https://t.co/aQApCmcSVL
— DFO Hockey Rundown (@DFOHockey) May 7, 2021
Play the Kids
On the topic of the 2021 season and the amount of rookies the Blackhawks had to ice, Bowman talked about the “change” in direction the organization had to make. In an attempt to rebuild the team back to prominence, the Blackhawks made a concerted effort to play more young players this season. Their hand was forced in some aspects with the loss of Alex Nylander, Jonathan Toews, and Kirby Dach at the beginning of the season. Luckily for Chicago, their rookies can play.
It’s been a successful year from that transition to putting the young players into the lineup and seeing if they could sink or swim…The thing I learned from it is that it’s hard to win in this league with this many young players. We held it together for a while, we were still competitive, it shows a lot of resiliency in this young group. – Stan Bowman
Still (Re-)Building
While Chicago has seen success from their rookies this season, it’s not a closed book on the rebuilding process. Players like Brandon Hagel, Pius Suter, and Philipp Kurashev have come to establish themselves as NHL-ready young players as well as Wyatt Kalynuk and Nicolas Beaudin, but there are no Rookie of the Year candidates in the group and likely no franchise-changing players. As a base-layer to build upon, Chicago can be happy with their rookie class of 2021 and encouraged with the progress a player like Adam Boqvist showed this season when healthy.
We’re not where we want to be in our goal of building this back up, but we are taking steps. Although the record may not look much different than the last year or two, the way that we achieved the record was different. We relied a lot on the young players and we need them to continue to take steps forward. And we need to supplement that group over the next year or two with more experienced and accomplished players…We’re not where we want to be (with impact players), but it was promising to see that our young guys have shown they can play in the league. – Stan Bowman
Players like Hagel and goaltender Kevin Lankinen can be pointed to this season as Chicago’s candidates for the team’s Rookie of the Year, and both have legit cases to be made that they can be building blocks for the new regime of the Blackhawks.
Hagel’s Element
On Hagel, Bowman beamed about his style of play and how well he transitioned to the NHL.
The way Hagel plays is giving our team a bit of a different feel than we’ve had in the past. For a number of years we were a high-scoring offensive team who controlled the play with our offensive guys. We still have some of those players (DeBrincat and Kane) but we don’t have as many as before. We are trying to transition to being able to play a couple different ways. We want to still be able to play that skill game, but we’re also trying to find players who can bring a different element. – Stan Bowman
Lankinen’s Emergence
On Lankinen, Bowman spoke about his own transition to the NHL and what he can be for the Blackhawks in net in what will be a more normal season in 2021-2022.
I thought Kevin had a great season. He played a lot of games in a short amount of time. If you look at him as a balance throughout the season, he’s been a really nice find for our team…The challenge for Kevin is to get that consistency in his game and be able to handle the workload. There won’t be a year like this year ever again, where you are basically playing every other day, so that was a challenge for him. There weren’t too many goalies around the league playing as much as he did. He’s got a bright future for us. – Stan Bowman
While players like Lankinen and Hagel are nice, they are not the players that will put Chicago back to the top of the NHL. Chicago has a need to find impact players, whether in the NHL Draft or via a trade or through free agency. The prospect pipeline for the Blackhawks is full of “maybes” but there is no sure-fire star in the group.
Does Financial/Roster Flexibility Lead to Impact?
For Bowman this summer, he finds himself and the organization in a position that they have not been in for the last near-decade. They have flexibility. With Brent Seabrook and Andrew Shaw for sure going on LTIR again next season, Chicago will have room to add and be in the market for “impact players” should they become available.
We have a couple different directions we can go, different scenarios that might play out. We’re actually positioned pretty well to be active if an impact player were to be available this offseason or middle of next year…that gives us an optimistic outlook for the next few years, that we are going to have to bring more impact players in. But those opportunities don’t come around as often. You have to essentially wait and be in a position to be a candidate for those players. We’ve given ourselves some flexibility for when that opportunity comes. – Stan Bowman
Stay Patient
Bowman stressed in the interview the need for patience with the team’s rebuilding process. There was acceleration this season, but it’s far from over and organizations cannot be turned around overnight, as much as we’d like that to be the case.
There has to be some patience, that’s part of it. As humans, we don’t do well with patience. We want things and we want it now, it’s part of our society. We want instant rewards but it just doesn’t work that way…The building side of it is what excites me. ‘How are we going to find that player?’ That’s what I enjoy. It’s almost more rewarding than the maintenance part. – Stan Bowman
There’s Still the Draft
The Blackhawks will likely be drafting somewhere in the 10-11-12 range in this summer’s NHL Draft, pending any luck in the lottery. With such an odd season for prospects in 2021, the way these players are being evaluated is all over the board. It’s possible a top-tier prospect on one team’s draft board could be a second-round pick on another team’s board, or that a special player could fall down the draft board because he may not have played well in a small sample size this season, or didn’t play at all. The NHL Draft could provide Bowman a unique opportunity to find an impact player that the organization is lacking.
There’s a lot of young talent that is coming into this league and it just seems like year after year there are more players who are ready to step in. That probably wasn’t the case 10-15 years ago. When Kane and Toews came in as rookies and were as good as they were, that was a pretty unusual. You’re seeing it now more and more, these players are more prepared. – Stan Bowman
How’s Toews?
Speaking of Jonathan Toews, Bowman had a (non)-update on his discussions with the Blackhawks’ Captain and what he expects heading into the 2021-2022 season.
I did talk to him a couple weeks ago for about a half hour, talking about our team, himself, just life in general. He is improving. He’s hopeful as things start going in the right direction. You can’t predict the future, but just in the way he was talking, he’s optimistic about the future. At some point, that is his story to tell. – Stan Bowman
While Toews is reportedly expected to be back with Chicago next season, if he continues to see his health improve on the track it current is, losing him for this season with so many young and inexperienced players coming into the lineup made it a much more difficult transition for Bowman and the Blackhawks.
Seabrook’s Retirement
Also doesn’t help from a leadership standpoint that Brent Seabrook couldn’t play this season either and will be hanging up the skates.
He and Brent defined the leadership of our team for a long time. It’s been hard to transition, Kane has stepped up and taken a different role in that regard, but in relation to those guys when you don’t have them day-in and day-out, you certainly miss their leadership. – Stan Bowman
There’s opportunities for the Blackhawks to make moves this offseason and next season that we haven’t seen in recent years. They can be players in the free agent and/or trade markets and get creative to help teams in the expansion draft as well. Whether or not Bowman pulls the trigger on making those kinds of moves is yet to be seen, but his optimism for the possibility of doing so is encouraging.
Chicago has a near-blank slate for next season and beyond as they look to build upon the success of the rookies in 2021. Even though the shortened 2021 season didn’t end in the postseason, it was never supposed to and the rookies did exactly what you wanted them to. That’s something to build off and look forward to in 2021-2022.
