How Realistic Is the Blackhawks’ Talk of a Playoff Push This Season?
When the Chicago Blackhawks’ 2023-24 season ended, all eyes immediately turned to this upcoming season, with the question, “When will this team make the playoffs?” After all, they have been in a seven-year drought (excluding the 2020 Edmonton bubble playoffs), but they are also in the midst of a total rebuild. Even though it seems like the team is headed in the right direction, the playoffs still seem like a long shot for next season.
Or is it? In April, Nick Foligno and Taylor Hall said they believe a playoff push is realistic for next season. General manager Kyle Davidson thinks differently. Now that free agency and the 2024 NHL Draft have passed, can the players be proven right?
What The Blackhawks Said
Before proceeding, let’s revisit the Hall, Foligno, and Davidson’s quotes:
Taylor Hall
“The next step is to play meaningful games at the end of the season. I don’t think that realistically we’re looking at next year as being a Cup year or anything like that. Hopefully next year we can have some new fresh faces in here and we can take a step into playing meaningful games. Maybe at the trade deadline we’re adding some pieces to make a playoff push. That type of thing would be a really positive thing for us next year — and, honestly, realistic.” (from ‘Blackhawks look back at season with frustration, but see reasons for hope in 2024-25 and beyond’ – The AthleticNHL – 04/19/2024).
Nick Foligno
“I just don’t want to see us toil and be OK with maybe 10 more wins next year. I want to be like those teams that were pushing for the playoffs in the last bit of the season. I think that’s a realistic goal for this group.”
For the differing perspective,
Kyle Davidson
“I’m not saying that we’re going to be competing for playoffs or Stanley Cups or anything next year; I don’t know how realistic that is. It’s the best league in the world, best players and best teams in the world. To say we’re just going to improve a whole great deal in the standings is difficult. But we need to be better. And it’s time to take a step forward.”
Where The Blackhawks Are Now
The team has “fresh faces,” as Hall mentioned wanting, where there are six new forwards, one goalie, and two defensemen. Based on Teuvo Teräväinen and Tyler Bertuzzi’s 82-game average, they added 108 scoring points between them. With Laurent Brossoit as a backup goalie, they added someone who was part of the best goalie tandems in the NHL last season with the Winnipeg Jets and Vezina winner Connor Hellebuyck (2.42 goals-against per game, .923 save percentage).
On defense, Chicago added Alec Martinez and T.J. Brodie, who, even though they have seen some recent struggles, Martinez is a career plus-88, while Brodie is a career plus-84. Even Hall recently called the blue line a “playoff-type D-core” that the forwards have to complement. This is not even factoring in prospects like Frank Nazar, Landon Slaggert, and Wyatt Kaiser, who will be pining for spots at training camp. Artyom Levshunov will likely be a later-season factor.
This team pushing for a playoff spot factors on the best-case scenario, and if players stay healthy (big one!) and live up to expectations, which would be Brossoit and Mrazek finding a good balance in net, Connor Bedard continuing to develop off of his Calder Trophy-winning rookie season, while the other top-six players, like Philipp Kurashev, Taylor Hall, Bertuzzi, and Teräväinen build chemistry and continue their production. If Andreas Athanasiou, Ilya Mikheyev, and Lukas Reichel bounce back from their adversity-filled season and help balance the bottom-six scoring. Lastly, if Alex Vlasic and Seth Jones can continue to lead the defense while the rest of the veterans and Kevin Korchinski (if he makes the roster out of camp) hold strong. It’s not known if that would be enough to get them in a Wild Card spot, but it wouldn’t hurt matters.
It sounds like a lot of living on hope and prayer, right? Davidson is justified in being hesitant about playoff talk.
There’s Always a Chance…
Yet, I think Hall and Foligno have a point: anything can happen.
Take last season, for example. The Washington Capitals had the worst goal differential since 1991 and made the playoffs. If a team in the Central Division falters, maybe the Blackhawks can find themselves in a race like the Flyers, Red Wings, and Capitals saw, where it came down to game 82 to decide. It might be far-fetched, but stranger things have happened.
It’s a tough league to make the playoffs. I’m thinking back to 2018-19, how the Blackhawks didn’t even make the playoffs with Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Alex DeBrincat, Dylan Strome, and Corey Crawford on their roster, and that was when Toews, Kane, and DeBrincat all had career years. The current roster couldn’t be more different, but again, stranger things have happened. Like we see every season, teams expected to make the playoffs, like the New Jersey Devils, didn’t make it last season, and teams thought to be on the outside, like the Vancouver Canucks, did, so teams just have to play and see.
Overall, I don’t think the Blackhawks will be a playoff team next season, even if everything goes right, but who am I to say? As Foligno noted in January, despite outside opinions, the players must believe they can win and go from there. But they might be gaining some outside believers, too. Matt Larkin of Daily Faceoff listed the Blackhawks as a 2023-24 non-playoff team that could make the playoffs next season due to their busy summer. If the Blackhawks are more competitive on the ice next season, which is their goal, then who knows what that might look like for them.
However, players made it clear that they believe they are capable of more and are motivated to show it. As the old tale says, it’s hard to count anyone out in the NHL.
