Chicago Blackhawks Q&A: What is GM Kyle Davidson’s plan for the rebuild? What will they do at goalie?

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There still are so many questions about the new Chicago Blackhawks front office’s plan for its first offseason.

General manager Kyle Davidson has shared a lot of reasons why he tabbed Norm Maciver, Jeff Greenberg and Brian Campbell to be in his inner circle and how they plan to modernize hockey operations. But Davidson didn’t offer a ton of detail about the draft, free agency, the coaching search — you know, hockey stuff.

In some cases, there aren’t a lot of details to be had yet.

For example, Davidson can’t fully understand his draft strategy until he knows whether he’ll have a first-round pick — and that information comes with Tuesday’s lottery.

He has a list of attributes he wants in a coach, but if he has candidates in mind who might meet those criteria, he’s not yet divulging. But that likely will play out in July.

Still, there are some answers that we have and others we can intuit. Here are some readers’ questions.

Are the Hawks satisfied with their goalies or are they looking outside the organization? — @Ottawa19711

Kevin Lankinen and Collin Delia are both unrestricted free agents, but neither has looked like a long-term solution.

Delia, who has been with the organization since 2017, had a 3.85 goals-against average and .899 save percentage over eight appearances (six starts), compiling a 1-4-1 record.

He also faced the second most five-on-five shots per 60 minutes (38.78) among goalies with at least 200 minutes ice time, according to naturalstattrick.com.

Lankinen finished 8-15-6 with a 3.50 GAA and .891 save percentage. He also was on the negative side in goals saved above average (-15.5 GSAA) among qualifiers, according to hockey-reference.com. He also has made just 66 career starts, so that has to be taken into consideration.

General manager Kyle Davidson is keeping all options open.

“We’re still pretty early in talking about that,” he said. “We definitely need to bring some NHL contracts in.

“Kevin and Collin are part of that discussion, they’re not out of that candidate list, but there’s some players that we’ll look at in free agency and see which direction we want to go.”

Would the Hawks roll the dice and invest up to $4 million annually in 27-year-old Ville Husso, who split the season in St. Louis with Jordan Binnington and will be an unrestricted free agent?

Surely, the Blues can’t keep two goalies under 30 making top dollar, can they?

The Winnipeg Jets’ Eric Comrie, who’s 26 and had a 2.58 GAA and .920 save percentage in 19 games, will be a Group 6 UFA. But if the Jets keep goalie coach Wade Flaherty on staff, it could be difficult to pry Comrie away.

The Washington Capitals may have a decision to make between Ilya Samsonov and Vitek Vaněček, who will be restricted free agents with arbitration rights.

Vaněček, 26, was inconsistent during the regular season but he’s young, relatively low-cost ($716,667 cap hit 2021-22) and could grow with the Hawks. And if he’s doesn’t pan out during a multiyear rebuild, no big deal.

Davidson said he’s “not ruling out the trade market” and is keeping an eye on the pipeline.

“We have a couple options,,” Davidson said. “Most of them are not ready to step into the NHL, in any respect, but they’re very promising.

“Arvid Söderblom has been excellent in Rockford this year. … We just signed Jaxson Stauber out of Providence College, and we’re really high on him, so he’s going to be turning pro next year. And then we have Drew Commesso at Boston University who was on the U.S. Olympic team and was selected for two World Juniors in a row.”

What’s the rebuild strategy, draft and develop? Acquisition of proven NHL assets? Hybrid? We’ve been trying the latter unsuccessfully for a while, so what will be different? — @pdx2ord

From GM Kyle Davidson’s comments last week, he definitely is on the draft-and-develop side of things, and he may be more willing to employ the “patience factor” than predecessor Stan Bowman, who had given a lot of NHL ice time to young players before his ouster.

“If a player does end up back in Rockford, that’s not a failure at all,” Davidson said. “Looking back at some of the Cup teams, Duncan Keith spent time in the minors. A lot of the core of those early Cup teams with the Blackhawks spent time in the minors.

“… They’re going to learn what they need to do to get to the NHL and stay in the NHL and it’s not a race to the NHL for any of our prospects, it’s more of that journey of getting to the point that when you do get recalled, we can’t send you back. That takes time, that takes development and that takes commitment, but it takes commitment from our side working with them to the point that they come up and stay.”

It doesn’t hurt that CEO Danny Wirtz isn’t pressuring Davidson to turn the Hawks into a contender in a season or two, so Davidson is putting an emphasis acquiring prospects, not just placing all the Hawks eggs in the blue-chip basket.

“Quantity is what you need in building a depth of talent that’s going to come up together and sustain success at the NHL level,” he said. “If we can add more high-end talent, then that’s what we really want to do. It’s not necessarily an indictment of the players in our system. It’s more so just outlining, we need more.”

That’s not to say the Hawks won’t look at the market, of course.

“One thing we do want to put in place is playing a more up-tempo style of hockey,” Davidson said, “and if we need to go find a player or two on the market to help drive that philosophy and style of play, then we’ll definitely consider it. I’m not going to rule out anything.”

Well, almost anything. Don’t expect another splash contract like Seth Jones’ eight-year, $76 million extension.

“I would say it’s unlikely we’re going to sign some long-term deals,” Davidson said. “Very unlikely. But that’s not to say we won’t fill some spots in the UFA market if the right opportunity presents itself.”

It seems to me that things are heading in the right direction because of Kyle Davidson. And because of the circumstances why he is the new GM, where would this organization be if Stan Bowman had not been forced out? Would Bowman still be the GM had there not been a scandal? — @manutile

That scandal would be the Hawks’ cover-up of Kyle Beach’s 2010 sexual assault allegation against then-video coach Brad Aldrich.

According to an independent investigation by law firm Jenner & Block, the team’s senior leaders — including Bowman — violated the team’s own sexual harassment policy by failing to “promptly and thoroughly investigate” Beach’s allegation until after the Hawks won the Stanley Cup.

When Jenner & Block released its findings in late October, Bowman stepped down as president of hockey operations and GM.

It’s usually sketchy to play what-if, but in this case it’s fair to wonder if Bowman would’ve stayed in his role if he hadn’t been implicated in the scandal or if the scandal had never existed.

Bowman hadn’t even been in his new role as hockey operations president for a year yet. CEO Danny Wirtz added the title to Bowman’s GM duties in December 2020 when Wirtz named Jaime Faulkner president of business operations.

Wirtz tweaked top leadership to “reimagine the potential of hockey” and have both sides work together in ways they hadn’t before. He also wanted to grant Bowman full control of the hockey side months after firing team President John McDonough, who had a firm hand on both fronts.

Bowman had announced a rebuild before pivoting to a summer spending spree that included acquiring defenseman Seth Jones and goalie Marc-André Fleury.

But the new-look Hawks got off to a 1-9-2 start that precipitated Jeremy Colliton’s firing.

We may never know what Wirtz’s thinking would be in a hypothetical scenario in which Bowman isn’t entangled in a scandal, but it’s reasonable to think he could’ve survived Colliton’s abysmal start.

Colliton, after all, was Bowman’s first swing at a coaching hire after he dismissed Joel Quenneville in November 2018. Many a GM has gotten a second chance at picking the right coach.

Also remember that in August 2020, Bowman had three weeks with Wirtz in the Edmonton bubble to bond and sell him on his long-term plan for the Hawks.

When Wirtz promoted Bowman that December he praised Bowman’s “body of work” entering his 19th season.

“Stan has set forth a vision for where he wants to take the organization and the hockey team (and) a system to get us there,” Wirtz said. “We have a lot of trust in Stan, his knowledge is great and he’s a growth-minded leader. You don’t see that a lot in people who have success. They have success, stop and rely on that.”

But growth takes time and patience for trial-and-error.

Given Wirtz’s trust in Bowman before the events of 2010 were revealed, it’s logical to conclude Bowman would’ve received such latitude.

Is anyone untouchable or will offers be considered for anyone in trade? — @syats59

In short, no — unless a player’s no-trade clause deems it so.

However, it would be hard to imagine the Hawks would part with leading scorer Alex DeBrincat (41 goals) unless another GM puts something outrageous on the table.

“I don’t necessarily subscribe to the untouchable theory because there’s always a situation where someone’s going to offer you,” GM Kyle Davidson said in March. “Whether it’s realistic or not, there’s always a situation where you might get offered something that you can’t turn down.”

That happened with forward Brandon Hagel, who fetched two conditional first-round picks and two rookie forwards, Taylor Raddysh and Boris Katchouk, in a blockbuster deal that included sending two-fourth rounders to the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Said Davidson: “When you announce something like a rebuild, it’s only natural that people come to you with a lot of different ideas.”

The opening month of the season was too much to take and why the players put up with their performances is a real question. Wasn’t the core of Blackhawks enough to say, “We’ve had enough,” or has the skill level throughout the line diminished so much saving the season was impossible? — Tom K.

After talking to various members of the Hawks organization and some NHL experts, I don’t get the sense that skill was the problem.

In fact, associate general manager Norm Maciver said skill had been prioritized over competitiveness and speed for too long.

The players said they often came up short against better teams, unable to compete at the level they needed to for three periods.

That’s not to say that most of the teams in this year’s playoffs aren’t deeper and more talented than the Hawks, but by their own admission the Hawks have to fix their inconsistency.

Players also cautioned that losing feeds on itself.

“Things turn sideways when you’re not winning games,” Seth Jones after the season finale, a 3-2 overtime loss to the Buffalo Sabres. “A lot of player meetings and meeting after meeting, it’s never fun, it makes the season longer.

“If you find a way to win more games, it makes it more fun coming to the rink.”