The Future Of The Chicago Blackhawks: The NHL’s Deepest Organization?

The Future Of The Chicago Blackhawks: The NHL’s Deepest Organization?

For a long time, the Chicago Blackhawks were the team to beat. An elite group with multiple Stanley Cups and 100 plus point seasons. For the past few years, they’ve been pretty much the easiest team to beat, finishing third last in 2023 and second last in both 2024 and 2025. Chicago struggled mightily in recent years. And even with some core players in place for the future, they’re still finishing near bottom of the league. The upside of finishing poorly is that help is on the way. Recent features from publications such as the Athletic and Bleacher Report have ranked their prospect pool within the top five in the NHL. That doesn’t even include the young guys that have already graduated to the NHL. It’s an exciting future ahead for the Blackhawks, even if it might take another few years for them to be properly watchable again. So, today, let’s take a look at what the future holds for the Chicago Blackhawks, a franchise looking to get back to glory. The strength of Chicago’s prospect pipeline comes from its depth. Being in the bottom three of the NHL for three seasons and out of the playoffs for five means they’ve had the opportunity to accumulate some top picks. On top of that, they’ve made plenty of moves to acquire more picks over the years, selecting 11 times in the first round in the past four drafts. It’s been a slow and steady approach to the point that GM Kyle Davidson has been criticized. There are fans who understandably want him to accelerate the rebuild and finally ice a competent team. And with each and every season, there’s more pressure and reason to do so to ensure that the face of the franchise lives up to his potential. Connor Baddard has already played two NHL seasons. By the standards of a typical 20-year-old NHLer, he’s doing fantastic. By the standards of a first overall hyped to be generational talent, he could be doing better. Madard’s played exactly 150 games in the NHL to this point with just under 130 points to show for it. When you compare that to some of the guys that received similar levels of hype coming into the league, it doesn’t look good. But it’s also probably not totally fair to compare Baddard to two of the best players to ever play the sport. It’s easy to forget that players like Nathan McKinnon and Joe Thornton struggled to get going initially as well. Both of them eventually became heart trophy winners and Baddard’s stats to this point are considerably better than both of theirs were at the same point. Badard has also been put in a tougher situation than most other top picks. He’s had immense media pressure put on him. Maybe not Crosby or McDavid level, but close. That on the ice, the team and the talent put around him has largely been garbage. And many of the moves made specifically to help him haven’t worked out. Bard’s had a lot put on him on and off the ice and yet has a Calder trophy to his name and a 0.85 career points per game average. He may have been a bit underwhelming considering expectations to this point, but he’s nowhere near being a bust. This coming season could finally be his big breakout year. A big part of that is the fact that the Blackhawks are finally seeing some of the results of their draft picks with players coming up to join the supporting cast surrounding their franchise star. The most interesting young forward outside of Bedard is Frank Nazar. Nazar spent the start of the season with Rockford in the AHL. By December, it was clear that he was too good for the league with the production he was putting up. The rest of his season was spent in the NHL where Nazar started slow but showed consistent improvement gaining an increased role over time. The month of December where he debuted he played nine games registering one point. In April, the last month of the season, he played eight games registering nine points. The sample size is small, but Nazar was able to put together a month of playing at a legitimate 2C level in his rookie year at 21 years old. Just remaining consistent in how he had played that month already would mean a 92point year. Nazar looks to be the first key forward that can help shoulder some of the offensive burden that’s been thrown almost fully onto Bedard through these first two years. Much of the rest of the Hawks forward prospects are probably going to need more time. Their newest top forward prospect is Anton Frondell, 2025’s third overall selection. Fondelle is committed to another season in Sweden. Even if some elements of his game are already NHL ready, he’s listed as 6’1 205 at 18 years old. Quite a bit bigger than Bedard and Nazar. He’s got an excellent shot and a solid two-way game. Fundell will eventually bring another dimension to the Hawks center core that neither Badard nor Nazar have, bringing the Hawks a deep rotation in the most important position. None of the Hawks other forward prospects would be considered top tier, but they have a deep crop of talent there. Oliver Moore was someone able to make their Hawks debut last season, a prospect we know Chicago management was thrilled to see slip to 19th overall in 2023. He managed four assists in limited ice time, only playing nine games at the end of his college hockey season. Satcha Bu and Merrick Vanacher were both 2024 first round picks by Chicago. Bu’s first college season saw him lead the University of North Dakota in scoring. Vanacker was a key contributor on an absolutely stacked Brford Bulldogs team. Joined by another Hawks prospect who had a career year. Nick Lardis was one of the OHL’s biggest standouts this season. He became just the eighth player to hit 70 goals in a single OHL season. With this explosive season, Lardis suddenly becomes a much more interesting name on Chicago’s depth chart. In just the forward group, Chicago might not necessarily have the highest quality of prospects in any system, but has unmatched organizational depth. All of this doesn’t even include mentions of Roman cancer, Vaklav, Nestrasil, or Mason West, all of whom are viewed as having top six potential. Most of these prospects won’t hit, but we’ve already talked about 10 guys widely considered to have top six upside or better. Baddard and Nazar look to be pretty sure bets to be NHLers. And even if only like two of the remaining eight hit as players, even that would put the Hawks in a pretty good position. Safe to say the Hawks are well set up front. But how about on the blue line? Of the eight defenseman currently listed on Chicago’s NHL roster per puckedia, only Connor Murphy is above the age of 24. Much of the future of the defense is already there. One of the team’s biggest recent moves played a big part in this, moving on from Seth Jones to open up opportunities while also giving them their goalie of the future, 24year-old Spencer Knight. With that, the right side is open with slots filled by Artum Levchenov and Sam Renzel. Both made their NHL debuts this past season after spending the majority of their year in another league. For Levchenov, it was the AHL, his first taste of professional hockey, getting 52 games with the Rockford Icehogs. For Renzel, it was in college, taking on a leading role for the University of Minnesota Blue Line. Both were trusted heavily in their roles for their clubs, and when they got to the Blackhawks, it wasn’t anything different. Lev Shinov played 18 games for the Hawks, averaging just over 20 minutes per game. A full season should allow him to stretch his legs a little more. Renzel had a smaller sample size of nine games, but was a little more eyepopping. Entrusted with an average of 23 minutes a night, Renzel really stood out for the Blackhawks. He showed off his skill set in that short span and funny enough ended the season as one of only two Blackhawks to be in the plus column in plus minus. Quality right side defenders are a rarity in the NHL and Chicago has two with skyhigh potential active and ready to go for a full season in 202526. It’s a luxury that allowed them to trade away someone like Seth Jones and one that would put them at a huge advantage in their long-term future. Again, the biggest asset of the Chicago Blackhawks prospect pool is the fact they have so much talent in just pure quantity that some are bound to hit. There’s only three available slots on the left side of the defense in the long term. One of those is already solidified with her top left shot guy from last season, Alex Vlic. Vlic’s viewed as more of a defensive defenseman, but he managed a solid 30 points over a full 82 last season. He’s also extended longer than anyone in the organization at the moment, set to earn 4.6 million per season until 2030. He’s sticking around which means there’s really only two slots available expected to be filled by two of Kevin Kchinsky, Ethan Del Mastro, Nolan Allen, Wyatt Kaiser, or whatever other young defenseman may break through. The expected top candidate of those to stick would be Kchinsky given his reputation and draft pedigree. He struggled being thrown into the NHL full-time in 2023 24. So, the Hawks gave him a lot more time in the American League in 2025. His stock dipping a bit since the draft opens up possibilities for someone else for one of the Hawks many other defenders. Ultimately, competition for roster spots only serves to benefit the Hawks who yet again take advantage of their organizational depth. The Chicago Blackhawks have made 11 first round picks in the past four drafts, including a consecutive run of picking first, then second, then third. There’s reason to be critical of some of the choices the Hawks have made. There’s certainly an avenue in which the discussions about what they could have had or who they could have had are brought up for years. But with the amount of players available in the Hawks organization, it’s probably enough to stick to hypotheticals with just the players they actually do have. Connor Baddard is the most important player for this Hawks rebuild. Unfortunately, the pressure is going to remain on him. As the most likely superstar in the organization, he absolutely needs to hit for this thing to work. As far as bets on a superstar or generational talent go though, he’s a pretty safe bet. They’ll need a center behind him. That could be Frank Nazar. If not, Anton Fondell, if not Mason West, they need wingers around him. That could be Oliver Moore or Nick Lardis or Roman Canerov or Vaklav Nestrasil. The Hawks are prepared for anything. That extends to the defense, even extends to the goalending where Adam Gan or Drew Kameso can substitute for Spencer Knight. The Chicago Blackhawks have built trenches so deep that it would take the worst luck in development in NHL history to come away from this rebuild with nothing. It’s not possible to bat a thousand on prospects. So, amassing quantity is often the best bet. It’s going to take multiple seasons before finding out which prospects are going to be long-term Blackhawks. It will be a slow, painful process, but this should be as bad as it’s going to get. Nazar has arrived. Levchanov has arrived. Renzel has arrived. Each of the next few seasons could very well see a similar addition of four to five prospects rotating onto the NHL roster at points throughout the year. The roster is going to go through change unlike any other organization over the coming years, but hopefully they emerge from it all with a championship caliber roster, ready to contend with the caliber of squads they had been trotting out just a short decade ago.

The Chicago Blackhawks have been one of the league’s worst teams for the past few seasons. It’s largely been a disaster on the ice, but fortunately, help is on the way. Some of their future stars have already arrived, like Connor Bedard, but many more are just breaking into the NHL. Frank Nazar, Sam Rinzel, and Artyom Levshunov are some examples of players who have made impressive starts to their NHL career. But just four names is only scratching the surface of how deep the Chicago Blackhawks organizational prospect pool has become. So today, we look at Chicago’s top prospects and future, discussing the various talented players they have in their organization.

All visual content displayed in this video belongs to its respective owners (Sportsnet, CBC, TSN, NCAA, Fox Sports, Bally Sports, NHL, QMJHL, OHL, WHL, NCAA, AHL, NBC, KHL, NHL Network, Chicago Blackhawks, and any other missing groups and organizations.)

#Chicago #Hawks #NHL

0:00 Intro
1:08 Franchise Face
3:51 Deepest System
7:38 Growing Blueline
11:10 Long-Term Process