Kalen Lumpkins: It’s not playoffs or bust for Blackhawks next season — but they need to provide hope

A focus on building talent through the draft brings with it the trials and errors of youth. We saw a fair share of both from the 2025-26 Hawks.

Ryan Greene’s ice vision has validated his top-line status, while Oliver Moore’s speed can contend with any skater on the ice. There also are question marks. Artyom Levshunov didn’t have the best rookie season, and Kevin Korchinski has yet to prove he can be a consistent NHL defenseman.

The Hawks had some ugly showings. A 9-3 shellacking in Buffalo. A 4-0 loss in Columbus before the Olympic break. A 7-2 home loss to a Carolina Hurricanes team filled with call-ups from the Chicago Wolves.

The explanation was that the team is young — and still will be in 2026-27 — and the players have to grow from these experiences and be content with that learning wavelength. It’s reasonable for now, but the Hawks can’t keep recycling the same explanation after every bad loss.

Comparison is the enemy of progress, but it’s hard to overlook what the Montreal Canadiens have accomplished with a similarly youthful group. The Habs went 48-24-10 in 2025-26 and made the playoffs for the second year in a row, a stark improvement from their 22-49-11 record in 2021-22. Their roster that season was the 17th-oldest in the league; this season they had the second-youngest roster, led by rookie Ivan Demidov, 20, and 51-goal scorer Cole Caufield, 25.

The Hawks already had an experienced team in 2022-23, Davidson’ first full season in charge, but tried adding different veterans to make up for the departures of Kane and Jonathan Toews and to help season Connor Bedard, the No. 1 draft pick in 2023. Then they switched gears and became the league’s youngest team in 2025-26. They’ve finished in the bottom four of the NHL in each of the last four seasons.

That’s not the plan for next season.

“If we’re fully healthy and we’re picking top three again (next year) — without a lottery win to put us there — we’ll probably be disappointed with that.” Davidson said.

He added that he would have to see how the next season plays out to make a determination on the progress of the rebuild. What’s the plan if the Hawks do indeed finish with a top-three pick again while healthy? We don’t know, and that’s worrisome in itself.

If nothing else, Bedard’s play is enough to look forward to as he aims to play a full season in 2026-27. There’s not much extra to say about his skill outside of oohs and aahs — he finished with a career-high 75 points despite suffering a separated shoulder in December and missing 12 games. Not only is he expected to take another step forward in his game, but he might be doing it with a captain’s patch.

Bedard, 20, hasn’t shown any outward displeasure with the team’s progress and is optimistic a contract extension will get done this summer. He and the rest of the players are fully on board for the next steps in Davidson’s rebuilding plan.

Whether that’s youth talking or genuine determination is up in the air. One thing that’s certain is losing takes a toll — Quinn Hughes would tell you that — and the Hawks have “succeeded” in that department. In Davidson’s four full seasons as the full-time GM, the Hawks have gone 103-187-38, and they haven’t won 30 or more games since the 2019-20 season.

Will the players continue to share the patience that Davidson, coach Jeff Blashill and the rest of the Hawks higher-ups have? They believe so.

“I expect the players to want to win every night,” Hawks Chairman and CEO Danny Wirtz said. “They want to win the Stanley Cup (in) Game 1 of the season, (and) that’s what we love about them.

“So much of this is going to be predicated on these players finding those ways to win, in their own game and in the team game. They will take the positives and continue to build over summer. The players are the least of my concerns.”

In exit interviews, most players expressed determination to flip the script and make the playoffs in 2027. That would snap a six-year drought and bring playoff hockey back to the United Center for the first time since 2017 (the 2020 playoffs were played in “bubbles” in Toronto and Edmonton because of COVID-19).

Blashill and Davidson didn’t exactly jump at the idea. Blashill said, “We’ll see”, while Davidson said it would be a “major step”. Doesn’t sound like the players and management are exactly on the same page.

The Hawks don’t need to make the postseason to label 2026-27 as progress. They’ll likely have long odds against qualifying for the playoffs, so no one is expecting a massive jump to Stanley Cup contention. What fans need to see is a light down the tunnel — and how far away it is.

The Hawks’ loss to the Edmonton Oilers on April 2 eliminated them from playoff contention with six games to go. They left Rogers Place with a five-game losing streak that suggested they were further from postseason hockey than even their record said. At minimum, playing meaningful games in April — like the San Jose Sharks and New York Islanders did this year — would be something to look forward to.

Goaltender Spencer Knight was one player who vaguely echoed his coach’s and GM’s view. He wants to win again — he won a Stanley Cup with the Florida Panthers in 2024 — but thinks the Hawks need to learn how to win first.

“It can be frustrating at times when we’re just losing games — everyone feels that — but I think it’s a good thing to feel that because it means we’re not complacent,” Knight said. “It’s a privilege to be in close games. You want to win every game, but you’ve just got to be in the game sometimes to get to that point.

“You can have that mindset (of) winning needs to happen next year, but it’s more or less like … let’s take steps. Let’s try to collectively buy into what it takes to win, not necessarily just focus on the outcome. That’s to me the most important thing, and wins are probably a byproduct of that.”

The Hawks youngsters will look to take that next step in their games in an attempt to put wins together. It’s OK to call this past season one of adaptation for Davidson, Blashill and the team, but now it’s time to see the players begin to apply those lessons on the ice.

Maybe the Hawks need a few more seasons to do that, but the NHL won’t be waiting around for them.

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