It hasn’t been a successful last few seasons in the win-loss column for the Chicago Blackhawks, as the team is set to miss the postseason for the sixth straight year and eighth time in the last nine seasons. However, the general consensus is that the team is on the way up as their rebuild continues.
Someone who feels that way is team chairman and CEO Danny Wirtz. He revealed on CHSN during Wednesday’s pregame show (X link) that the team has signed GM Kyle Davidson to a contract extension. Terms of the deal were not revealed. Minutes after that, the team officially announced the extension, noting it’s a multi-year agreement. Wirtz released the following statement:
“Kyle’s exceptional body of work to date has set us down the path of bringing sustainable, championship-caliber hockey back to Chicago. In a short amount of time, he’s rebuilt the team through strong drafting and player development, delivering a league-leading prospect pool and the beginnings of our future core. He alongside head coach Jeff Blashill have redefined our locker room’s culture and mentality, and we are seeing improvements in all of the underlying areas that make winning possible. We believe in Kyle’s vision for this team and remain fully committed to his plan to return the Blackhawks to the top of our sport.”
Davidson is in his fourth season at the helm in Chicago after taking on the job in the 2022-23 season. Initially promoted as an interim GM, the interim tag was taken off in March 2022. As Wirtz indicated in his announcement, Davidson was tasked with restocking a prospect pool that, at the time, was one of the weaker ones in the NHL.
To accomplish that objective, Davidson embarked on a full-scale rebuild, trading away several key veterans and even some younger core pieces that didn’t fit in the plans. In doing so, the team dropped sharply in the standings, but doing so allowed them to secure several key cogs, including centers Connor Bedard and Anton Frondell and defenseman Artyom Levshunov. Additionally, moving out Kirby Dach allowed them to add the draft pick that secured them Frank Nazar, who has quickly become a core piece as well.
But while Davidson has indeed put together a very strong prospect pool that’s set to graduate some more youngsters in short order, that’s only one part of getting this team back to playoff contention. He has brought in quite a few veterans in recent years to either act as bridge players to the prospects or, more recently, serve as pieces to help the team’s floor. Tyler Bertuzzi and Teuvo Teravainen were signed in free agency, while Andre Burakovsky was added via trade to try to help push the team forward while also bringing in a more established head coach in Blashill. Instead, while they’ve added nine points from a year ago in the standings, they’re actually scoring even less than a year ago, despite better than a point-per-game showing from Bedard.
For the Blackhawks to truly take that next step forward, they will need to find a way to add more prominent veterans to help bring the team along, while their youngsters continue to improve, which will also aid in that objective. Davidson has a little more than $40M in cap space for next season as things stand, per PuckPedia, so they certainly have the flexibility needed to add more core pieces to their roster. With this vote of confidence, Wirtz is banking on Davidson being able to do just that.