From the Athletic, Hawks poised for best odds for McKenna. Would be great to get him, not sure if I’m buying this though. The athletic writers are (admittedly) usually off on these types of things.
From the Athletic, Hawks poised for best odds for McKenna. Would be great to get him, not sure if I’m buying this though. The athletic writers are (admittedly) usually off on these types of things.
15 comments
Third season in a row of me saying , “okay after this next year it’s finally time to start seeing some results.”
If we like it or not it does seem like the plan is put all chips in getting McKenna if possible. Good luck convincing me this is not the direction we are going
I’d love nothing more than McKenna, been drafting him in Franchise mode for him & Bedsy to play together lol. Buuutttt, I’d like to see us take a step forward & finish a few spots higher in the standings. Morale can’t be great finishing 31st or 32nd every year. This team needs to start creeping back up and start progressing.
Rebuilds take time. It really only started in 2022/23. They’re still in the infancy. Most of the picks that were taken in 22/23 are just starting to come thru the show last year and this year. Of course it’s not going to be quick.
I think we’re still a bottom 2 team for sure. Development takes time and continues into the NHL. Just cause we have guys poised to make their season debuts next year doesn’t mean they will automatically be producing at the level we expect of them in the future.
With more young talent coming to the roster I think they’ll take a small step forward this year and not finish in the bottom 2-3 of the league. Wouldn’t be completely shocked if they do though.
I honestly think the Hawks will finally take a baby step and finish above 70 points this year. Their young guys looked promising at the end of last year and the vets have been here for a year now. They’re gonna be playing the same roster, which is the first time we’ve done that in 4 years.
I don’t think we’re sniffing the playoffs, but I think the Hawks will finally start to trend upwards. Building off the end of last year when we finished with 9 points in our last 6 games.
If you look at the rest of the teams in the league it’s hard to convince myself that the Hawks are better than any of them on paper. San Jose are the only one they’re close to, but even they should likely have more young talent on the roster.
I certainly hope this prediction is a bunch of hacks smoking crack…
I’d rather us finish better than bottom five than tank our centennial celebration year for McKenna. I want us to out-perform to celebrate our legacy, draft order be damned.
I’m still in the camp that because we got Bedard earlier in our rebuild, our fan base expected us to expedited our rebuild. Which has not ever be the plan. As Davidson has mentioned. Keep in mind, we got Bedard essentially after our first year of Davidson saying, “we’re rebuild” – Davidson hired permanently in spring 2022, summer 2022 announces rebuild. But we still had Toews, Kane, Jones on the roster to begin that year, we finished 3rd worst and got lucky enough to get #1. Remember, if we hadn’t gotten lucky, we would’ve ended up with either Carlson, Fantalli or maybe even Will Smith, none of which have had the seasons Bedard has.
The plan has always been to build through the draft. This is Davidson’s 4th draft and we are just now starting to see some of those picks developing. The prospect pool before Davidson was super super thin with really only Kaiser, Reichel, Vlasic, Kurashev showing any true NHL contribution or carry over, and one could argue about Kaiser, Reichel and Kurashev (who is already gone) being “NHL contributing” to this point.
I’m fine with tanking one more year for McKenna and seeing what some of these young guys can do, but I do expect next summer to begin crawling out of the basement.
I’d love to see them start winning more, and honestly I’m more confident in the Hawks than a lot of these writers seem to be. That said, I still think they’ll be in the mix for McKenna when all is said and done.
One thing that doesn’t get mentioned enough is the ongoing development of this roster. The team’s undisputed superstar turns 20 this week. They’re still so young, but the potential is real. The recent videos of Bedsy training that have been going around social media are really promising. He looks stronger, quicker, and totally locked in.
There’s a lot of learning and growth ahead, but I think they’ll be further along by the end of the season than people expect. This is going to be a young, exciting roster, and I’m pumped to watch these guys gain confidence and take real steps forward this year.
What people aren’t thinking about are the inevitable injuries. When some of the new younger guys get hurt, who’s replacing them? Even younger less experienced guys. Whereas in years past, if the vets got hurt, these younger guys (who will now be starting the season on the hawks) would come up.
This team is going to have the worst record of “the rebuild”. I personally would have started adding legit veteran talent this past offseason, but I think Davidson knows he can still sell tix even with a bad record and is going to go for at least one more top 3 pick.
The Athletic staff just hates the Hawks by and large haha listen to how people like McIndoe, Goldman, Gentille, etc. talk about the Hawks on their podcast and it is clear that none of them are particularly fond of Chicago or even bother to think about what we are doing/trying to do at any given time.
This poll is basically no better than polling /r/hockey. People will keep claiming we’re the worst team in the league (despite never actually being the worst team in the league) and the Sharks are lightyears ahead of us even after we return to the playoffs before them. Especially now when the Sharks are making all the same mistakes this offseason that we did last year, it doesn’t really make any sense to have us ranked so drastically behind them lol
Last year we jumped from 52 points in 2024 to 61 points, growing our point margin over last place in the process even though we still finished 31st. Going into next year the biggest changes are:
– Knight in net over Mrázek all year.
– Rinzel likely taking over most of Jones’ previous responsibilities, though Seth only played half of last year with us anyways and was brutal recovering from injury for a good portion of that.
– Dead weight in Maroon, Smith, Kurashev, Martinez, Brodie, arguably Hall, etc. being replaced with Burakovsky, Lafferty, and some mix of young guys like Dach, Slaggert, Moore, Del Mastro, Allan, Kaiser, etc. all year.
– Bedard, Nazar, Vlasic, etc. are another year older with a very fucking long offseason to train.
Blashill is kind of the wildcard here but even if he’s as bad as Richardson/Sorensen, we’re looking at a wash here with last season unless there are disastrous injuries throughout the lineup. Realistically, would anyone be surprised if the Hawks moved to 65 or even 70 points? I don’t think we should be.
Explain to me how there is such a large gap between them and San Jose. Doesn’t make sense to me when their defense is weak. The brought on Reeves, and Skinner aside those are worthwhile additions. Their goalie core is abysmal.
Like. WHAT?!
Yeah. I expected this team to still be bottom 3. They probably won’t show any actual improvement till next year at the earliest, but most likely the year after.
I think winning the lottery for Bedard threw everyone off and people started expecting to contend way sooner than they should. I always figured the 27-28 season was when FAs would look at the Hawks and see the potential. That’s when Davidson is going to hope to land his big fish in free agency.
So the 28-29 would be when they began to “contend”. I use the term loosely since I only expect them to contend for a playoff spot at the point. Afterwards though…