Hope always burns hot for Chicago thanks to having Connor Bedard. The problem Blackhawks fans have dealt with, however, is his unfortunate injury history early in his career.
Bedard is set to begin another hopeful season injured, which makes it difficult to get too excited.
Chicago has made some moves to do things differently. They acquired defenseman Bowen Byram from Buffalo (for the No. 4 pick in the 2026 draft and defenseman Louis Crevier) and signed him to a six-year, $75 million extension to be their No. 1 blueliner.
They also brought back team legend and future Hall of Famer Patrick Kane to spur their offense and power play. Those are reasons to think GM Kyle Davidson is getting aggressive about their perennial status as a lottery team.
Even with those additions, not starting the season with Bedard is a reminder of how thin the team still is. Yes, they’ve got some fun young talent with Frank Nazar, Anton Frondell, Artyom Levshunov and Roman Kantserov, but relying on young guys means needing them to be consistently strong players and that can take time.
Chicago could improve by 15-20 points and that would be a huge jump, but it also might not be enough to get them to the playoffs, which is what the organization and its fans want now.