Bedard is the cornerstone of the Blackhawks\u2019 rebuild under Davidson, 37, who was named general manager on March 1, 2022, after serving in an interim role beginning Oct. 26, 2021. He has been with the Blackhawks organization since beginning as an intern in 2010.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s doing a great job,\u201d Bedard said of Davidson after getting two assists against the Sharks on Wednesday. \u201cYou see the talent we\u2019ve collected the past few years and he\u2019s a great guy. He\u2019s very easy to talk to. Me and him have a good relationship and he has a good relationship with all of our players. That\u2019s important and he\u2019s a very smart hockey mind. I think it\u2019s exciting when you can keep growing with the same group of people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chicago finished the season 29-39-14 and missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the sixth straight season. The\u00a0Blackhawks finished with 72 points, 11 more than they had in 2024-25. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cJust continuity,\u201d Wirtz said of re-signing Davidson. \u201cWe\u2019re really, really happy with the progress we\u2019re making and all the work we still need to get done, we want to continue to build the way we\u2019re building and continue to execute on his plan and his vision.\u201d<\/p>\n
Said Davidson: \u201cI am extremely grateful for the support that Danny Wirtz has shown me these last four years. His commitment to our shared vision for the future of the Blackhawks has been vital to the success we\u2019ve seen as we\u2019ve worked to build our roster into a team that can compete for years to come. We still have lots of work to do as we strive to bring the Stanley Cup back to Chicago and I\u2019m excited to continue building a team that our fans can be proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n
Recent draft picks Bedard and Frank Nazar<\/a>\u00a0(No. 13, 2022 NHL Draft) were two of Chicago\u2019s top three scorers this season. Nazar was third with 41 points (15 goals, 26 assists). Anton Frondell<\/a>, the No. 3 pick of the 2025 draft, made his NHL debut on March 24 and had nine points (three goals, six assists) in 12 games.<\/p>\n Davidson drafted defenseman Artyom Levshunov<\/a> with the No. 2 pick in 2024 and acquired goalie Spencer Knight<\/a>\u00a0from the Florida Panthers on March 1, 2025. Levshunov had 24 points (two goals, 22 assists) in 68 games this season, while Knight was 19-25-11 with a .902 save percentage and 2.82 goals-against average.<\/p>\n \u201cThese players in their own development have to take another step,\u201d Wirtz said. \u201cEven Connor needs to take another step and he will. He\u2019s that competitive, but across the board, those are the things (we need). The collective improvement each of those players makes translates into team competitiveness and ultimately wins. That\u2019s what we\u2019re going for.<\/p>\n \u201cOur intention is to be competing and winning Stanley Cups but we can\u2019t race to that conclusion until we do all those right things. I feel really good with our pipeline, I feel really good with our prospects but prospects turning into real players as we\u2019ve seen this year is going to be continuing the trend.\u201d<\/p>\n The Blackhawks\u2019 focus under Davidson has been to build from within, to draft and develop the next generation. The core of their 2010, 2013 and 2015 Stanley Cup championship teams were their own drafted\/developed prospects, including forwards Jonathan Toews<\/a>\u00a0(No. 3 pick in the 2006 NHL Draft) and Patrick Kane<\/a>\u00a0(No. 1 in 2007) and defensemen Duncan Keith<\/a> (No. 54 in 2002) and Brent Seabrook<\/a>\u00a0(No. 14 in 2003).\u00a0<\/p>\n That said, Wirtz said he\u2019s fine with Davidson adding some veterans through free agency too.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think our plan has always been exclusively to build from within,\u201d Wirtz said. \u201cWe think that the core of this team needs to be homegrown talent through the draft. That\u2019s how we were successful in the past.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen the opportunity arises and we have the opportunity to add to our team and become better, there\u2019s nothing holding Kyle back, that\u2019s for sure. It\u2019s not coming from me. So, he\u2019s got the reins to make those decisions when he thinks the time is right and when the opportunities arise. We can\u2019t always make opportunities out of thin air. (It\u2019s) a combination of continuing to build from within and adding the right ingredients when the time comes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bedard is the cornerstone of the Blackhawks\u2019 rebuild under Davidson, 37, who was named general manager on March…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-607504","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}