The 2019-20 NHL season was an interesting one for the Chicago Blackhawks. The team went into the season with low expectations and were on track to miss the playoffs. However, the season became suspended in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. When the season resumed in August 2020, the Blackhawks received the final playoff spot in the league. They played the Edmonton Oilers in the first round of the playoffs. The Oilers entered the playoffs as the fifth-best team in the Western Conference, while Chicago entered as the 12th best team. Despite entering the playoff series as a massive underdog, the Blackhawks pulled off an upset and won three out of the four games to win the series. The team then faced the best team in the Western Conference, the Vegas Golden Knights. The Blackhawks lost 4 out of 5 games and were eliminated from the playoffs. Now Chicago finds themselves in a very intriguing situation.
The team’s core consists of a few established stars, young prospects, and aging veterans. That puts the Blackhawks in a weird situation where they cannot start a rebuild, but they are also just out of contention for a championship. With well-established stars like Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews, the team has two of the best hockey players. The young prospects on the team like Kirby Dach, Alex DeBrincat, and Dylan Strome will continue to develop and hopefully take over from Toews and Kane when they retire. However, Chicago faces some problems, most notably in the defense and goaltending departments. The defense, led by Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook, is getting old. Keith and Seabrook are two of the most prominent players on defense, but they are respectively 37 and 35 years old. The Blackhawks do have some young prospects on defense like Adam Boqvist and Nicholas Beaudin, but they might need to add a few established defensemen if they want to take that next step. Goaltending has been a problem for the team for a while now. Star goalie Corey Crawford has been injured the past few years and has not seen consistent ice time since the 2016-17 season. With that in mind, the Blackhawks cut him from the roster this offseason. The team has a few options at goaltender, but none of these alternatives have played at Crawford’s level the past few seasons. The Blackhawks will either need to draft a goaltender and develop him or sign someone in free agency if they want to contend for a championship.
The Chicago Blackhawks face an exciting future. This upcoming season looks like it will be another year where the team does not do much, but they can make the playoffs. If the team developed prospects and signed a few established players to bolster their defense, they could clean up their goaltending situation. Therefore, the Blackhawks would have a good chance of becoming championship contenders again. However, they will need to do this quickly because players like Toews and Kane are not getting younger.
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