Please explain something to me. Since the Blackhawks’ dramatic decline their rebuild seems to be taking forever because they seem to immediately trade away anyone that’s doing well, i.e. Brandon Hagel. Most recently, Ryan Donato, who is gelling well, is on the block. What gives? — @foxodinson.bsky.social
Big picture, the Chicago Blackhawks are in an obvious rebuild and they’re trying to do it through the NHL Draft. It’s 50-50 if they can make it work, but clearly the picks to them matter. They have nine in the 2025 NHL Draft, including two in the first round. They have 10 in 2026, three in the second round. They made 11 picks in 2022, three in the first round, getting Kevin Korchinski, Frank Nazar and Sam Rinzel. They also made 11 picks in 2023, including Connor Bedard at No. 1 and Oliver Moore at No. 19. Defenseman Artyom Levshunov was taken No. 2 in 2024. Picks are nice to have but the odds of hitting on even 50 percent of them aren’t great. Chicago needs to start using some of those picks in trades to get better ASAP.
Regarding Hagel, hindsight shows us that they should have re-signed him. He was 23 when they traded him. Why? It doesn’t look good so far. Hagel is playing like a star for the Tampa Bay Lightning and played for Canada at the 4 Nations Face-Off. Boris Katchouk and Taylor Raddysh, the two players Chicago got in that trade March 18, 2022, are no longer with the team. The Blackhawks also got two conditional first-round picks. They took Moore in 2023. He is a sophomore at the University of Minnesota. They moved up two spots in 2024 to take forward Sacha Boisvert, a freshman at the University of North Dakota. There’s still time for that trade to work in Chicago’s favor, but there is no guarantee that Moore and/or Boisvert turns into what Hagel has become in Tampa Bay. It’s a better bet that they don’t.
Along those lines, the Blackhawks probably should have kept defenseman Jake McCabe, but they traded him to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Feb. 27, 2023, to get a 2025 first-round pick, among other assets, in return. McCabe, 31, is a legit top four defenseman. He’s in the first season of a five-year, $22.5 million contract he signed Oct. 28, 2024. The Blackhawks would clearly be better with him.
Now that the Blackhawks are again near the bottom of the NHL standings, likely to again pick in the top three or four of the draft, it makes you wonder when this cycle of finishing last in the Central Division will end. It’s noteworthy that Bedard will be coming to the end of his entry-level contract after next season. If the Blackhawks don’t start to move in a better direction, Bedard could sour on them. That would be the worst thing. He’s the franchise right now.
