I had originally planned two Blackhawks mailbags during the NHL’s Olympic break. Well, the questions kept coming, so I kept writing.

Anyway, we’re now going to have three installments of my mailbag. Here is part one, if you missed it. The second part is below.

How do you think the Sharks’ rebuild is similar and different from the Blackhawks’? They seem to be having early and more sustainable success this season. — John W.

I get that a lot of people perceive that the Sharks are ahead of the Blackhawks, but it honestly feels much closer. If you look at their season records, yes, the Sharks have a .527 points percentage and the Blackhawks have a .467 points percentage. But it looks much different if you go deeper. Of the Sharks’ 27 wins this season, they’ve won 16 in regulation and 11 in overtime or a shootout. Of the Blackhawks’ 22 wins, 17 have come in regulation and eight in overtime or a shootout. The Blackhawks actually have one more regulation win than San Jose. The major difference is that the Sharks are 9-3 in overtime and 2-1 in shootouts, and the Blackhawks are 2-4 in overtime and 3-5 in shootouts. Both are also aligned with top-10 draft picks in 2026. The Blackhawks have the league’s sixth-worst record, and the Sharks have the ninth-worst.

The Sharks’ rebuild probably started with the 2023 draft. They took forward Will Smith with the No. 4 pick and forward Quentin Musty at 26. The 20-year-old Smith has come along as the Sharks hoped. He has 17 goals and 22 assists this season. Musty is in the AHL.

The Sharks drafted center Macklin Celebrini with the first pick in 2024 and defenseman Sam Dickinson at No. 11. Celebrini is already a star. Dickinson has averaged 15:49 of ice time this season and is adjusting to the NHL as a young defenseman.

The Sharks took forward Michael Misa at No. 2 in the 2025 draft. He has two goals and six assists and averages 11:49 of ice time in 18 NHL games as an 18-year-old rookie. Before last year’s draft, the Sharks also traded a first-round pick as part of a deal to acquire 23-year-old Yaroslav Askarov, whom they hope will be their goalie of the future. William Eklund, 23, is a top-six forward and will have a $5.6 million cap hit beginning next season. Collin Graf, 23, is a top-nine forward and is due another contract before next season. Igor Chenyshov, 20, is in the AHL, but he had some success in the NHL earlier this season. The Sharks’ NHL roster includes eight players who are 23 or younger.

I won’t get into all the details of the Blackhawks’ rebuild history. I’m going to assume you know them. Based on today, the Sharks are probably a little ahead of the Blackhawks with the trio of Celebrini, Smith and Misa from a forward standpoint. We’ll be having the Connor Bedard-versus-Celebrini debate for years. Celebrini is ahead of Bedard right now, partly because Celebrini’s been healthy all season. Incredibly, Celebrini has 81 points on the season, and the next Sharks player has 39.

Smith is younger and a little more consistent than Frank Nazar right now. In Nazar’s hot stretches, he looks as though he has that same offensive potential. Misa isn’t tearing up the NHL, but he has a lot of offensive upside. We’ll give him the edge over Anton Frondell simply for being in the NHL right now. A year from now, Frondell and Roman Kantserov could change the whole perspective. You’ll probably know more about Oliver Moore, Ryan Greene and Nick Lardis come next season, too. The Blackhawks do have more forwards coming than the Sharks. The Sharks drafted 12 forwards in the first three rounds between 2022 and 2025, and the Blackhawks drafted 21.

As for the defense, the teams’ roster construction is different. The Blackhawks have devoted more first-round picks to defensemen and have the edge on young defensemen in the NHL. For San Jose, there’s Dickinson and 24-year-old Shakir Mukhamadullin in the NHL. Beyond them, Luca Cagnoni, a 2023 fourth-round pick, leads their AHL defensemen in points. Leo Sahlin Wallenius, a 2024 second-round pick, is in Sweden, and Haoxi Wang, a 2025 second-round pick, is in the OHL. The Sharks acquired former Blackhawks prospect Nolan Allan, and he’s in the AHL. It’ll be interesting to see how San Jose approaches its defensive group in the coming years. The Sharks have four defensemen set to become unrestricted free agents after this season, and Dmitry Orlov is set for the following season. Where the Blackhawks are looking to set up their defense with Artyom Levshunov, Sam Rinzel, Alex Vlasic, Wyatt Kaiser, Louis Crevier, and possibly Ethan Del Mastro and Kevin Korchinski, who are all 24 or younger, the Sharks might opt to build a lot of their defense from the outside.

At goalie, Spencer Knight, 24, and Askarov, 23, were both first-round picks. It’s still so early in both their careers, but Knight has had more success early on. He has a .908 save percentage in 39 games this season. Askarov has an .889 save percentage in 35 games this season. Knight has played more career games, but this is the first season for either goalie as a true No. 1. Both organizations have goalies further down the pipeline they like, too.

The Sharks appear to be trying to accelerate their rebuild quicker than the Blackhawks. The Sharks acquired Kiefer Sherwood from the Vancouver Canucks for two second-round picks. Sherwood is on an expiring contract, but you have to imagine the Sharks want to extend him and that he’s not simply a rental. The Sharks will also likely have a lot of extra cap space in the coming years with so many of their young players on entry-level deals. Like the Blackhawks have in Tyler Bertuzzi and Teuvo Teräväinen, the Sharks also have a few veterans, such as Tyler Toffoli and Alexander Wennberg, in their lineup who fill top-nine spots and are among the team’s top-paid players.

We’ll see where these teams go in the next three or so years, how they continue to draft, manage player development, fill in their rosters and so on. Maybe one breaks away. I just don’t think you can judge them now.

The Blackhawks are being patient with Kevin Korchinski’s development. (Sergei Belski / Imagn Images)

I’m starting to wonder if the prospects that have been touted might be “overrated.” Is Nazar going to be worth $6.5 million per year? Is Greene just Marcus Krüger light? Is Moore just a gas guy who can’t finish? Will Korchinski ever be what was expected? I was a fan of the rebuild concept, and I’m starting to wonder now if it will pay off. — George B.

There were a few questions like this. I do get fans’ impatience. You’re allowed to be frustrated with the route the Blackhawks decided to go in their rebuild. They chose a long path.

But what you have to understand about this path is that most of these young players need more time. Just going with the 2022 draft, most of the players taken in the first few rounds that year are just starting to become full-time NHLers. Nazar and Korchinski have played a lot of NHL games relative to other players drafted that year. The Blackhawks have four players in that draft who have played at least 40 NHL games. The Blackhawks are prioritizing their young players and making more room for them in the NHL.

I’m not saying this rebuild will definitely work, but you need to let it play out a little longer. Nazar is in his second full pro season and first in the NHL. Greene and Moore are in their first full pro seasons. Korchinski is 21, in his third full pro season, and is playing between 21 and 25 minutes a night in the AHL. It’s not like the Blackhawks have moved on from him.

Do you think Korchinski will make the opening day roster next season? — Dan B.

Korchinski must go on waivers to be sent down to the AHL next season, according to Puckpedia, so I expect him to be on the opening-day roster, unless the Blackhawks do something unexpected in the offseason. This is a vital offseason for him to gain strength and continue working on his game. It’s not that he never looks like the player the Blackhawks envisioned him to be. It’s just not consistent enough. He’ll be 22 in June. He’s still young. Gustav Forsling and his late development get thrown around a lot, but it’s important to remember that prospects, especially defensemen with some NHL attributes, do sometimes figure it out later. The fact that Korchinski won’t be waiver-exempt next season does complicate matters. Ethan Del Mastro also won’t be waiver-exempt come next season.

What will the Hawks get for Murphy at the trade deadline? — Admiral

It sounds like there are some teams interested in Connor Murphy. Can they get a second-rounder for him? I guess it depends on the market. Probably doubtful, but you never know. A third-round pick might be more realistic.

How long is the Blackhawks’ agreement with CHSN, and now that the White Sox are being sold, if Reinsdorf also sells the Bulls in the next few years, do you see Wirtz breaking away from them regarding TV deals? — Bob A.

The Blackhawks are part owners of CHSN, so it’s not really an agreement with an independent network. I don’t think any team ownership changes would impact the network much. The fact that the teams actually have an established regional sports network is probably one less thing a new owner would have to worry about. What I’m more curious about is whether Major League Baseball seeks to place all of its teams under its own in-market, direct-to-consumer option. MLB is starting to add more teams there. If the White Sox went to that, I do think it could impact CHSN. All of a sudden, it would have a lot less to offer in the spring and summer. I do think getting CHSN on Comcast has helped the Bulls and Blackhawks this season.

After the confusion of the Panthers’ first-round pick protection, I’m curious about another scenario. Let’s say the Panthers finish in the top 10 this year and the pick is pushed to 2027, at which point it’s unprotected, and let’s say the Blackhawks win the lottery this year, thus maxing out their “benefit twice in five years” rule with the lottery. Would they be allowed to move up with the Panthers’ 2027 pick, as it would count as the Panthers benefiting from the lottery even though they don’t own the pick? Or would they be barred from moving up due to the rule, even if it’s not their own first-round pick? — Dan B.

Can you run through these scenarios involving the Panthers’ pick:

1. If Ottawa finishes below Florida, does the fact that they forfeit their pick affect any top-10 protection? E.g., Florida finishes 11th, but there’s a forfeited pick in spots 1-10. Is Florida still 11, or does it now count as top 10?

2. When is the protection applied? E.g., if Florida finishes outside the bottom 10 in the standings, but wins the lottery and moves up in the draft, do they still retain that protection, or had the pick already moved to Chicago before the lottery drawing?

3. If Chicago were to retain the pick in Scenario 2 above, does that then preclude them from a second lottery win with their own pick, since they already won in 2023? — Patrick G.

There were a lot of questions about the trade conditions. Let’s start with this: I don’t know why the conditions weren’t better known. I’ve gone back and tried to figure this out, and I don’t have any answers. A lot of people initially reported the conditions of how the pick could slide to 2027, but not that it was top-10 protected. Why is that? Again, I’m not sure. The teams knew the conditions, and maybe some other people did, too. There isn’t some larger conspiracy. It’s just odd that it somehow fell through the cracks. It’s rare that something like that happens, especially among the national insiders, and may not happen again. I’ve put too much time into thinking about it and am ready to move on.

I know some fans were really upset with the trade after this fact. I get that, to an extent. You were hoping for another top-10 pick if the Panthers crashed out. I also go back to how I thought the Blackhawks were going to have a lot harder time moving Seth Jones. A first-round pick, Knight and eating some of Jones’ cap hit in years where the Blackhawks weren’t going to have cap issues still seems like a win. We’ll see how it plays out with the Panthers over the season’s final months.

Anyway, to other questions about the trade. If the Panthers’ pick moved to 2027 and they moved up in the lottery, it would count as the Panthers’ lottery win, not the Blackhawks’. It’s technically the Panthers’ pick and is being given to the Blackhawks. So, the Blackhawks wouldn’t be impacted by the lottery rule. As for Ottawa, it won’t actually be included in the lottery. If the Senators don’t make the playoffs, there will be only 15 teams in the lottery.

As for the top-10 protection, it applies to where a team is drafting after the lottery, not where it finishes in the standings. The Panthers have to possess a top-10 draft pick for it to be protected. I hope that answers everything about that. If not, feel free to reach out to me.