Talk of the Chicago Blackhawks as a playoff team this season is easy to start and hard to defend.
The appeal is obvious. Connor Bedard gives them a true headliner, and the roster does have a solid supporting cast around him.
There’s real skill here. There’s also no denying that the Blackhawks could be a surprise team if everything clicks at the right time.
But the leap from promising to playoff-ready is still a big one. Bedard is only 21, and players such as Anton Frondell still have just a handful of NHL games on their résumé. That’s not the profile of a group that should be treated like a finished product.
Could Chicago pull off something dramatic? Sure.
A team can catch fire, play with speed and confidence, and ride that wave into the postseason. The source of that kind of breakout would be talent and energy, the same ingredients that once powered the Edmonton Oilers in the early 1980s.
The problem is that those kinds of seasons are rare enough to feel almost mythical. In the last 40 years, there really hasn’t been a young team like the 1983 Oilers that stormed the league. The closest comparison might be last year’s Montreal Canadiens, but even they leaned on a heavy veteran presence around their young core.
That’s why the playoff chatter feels overblown. Chicago plays in what amounts to the NHL’s toughest neighborhood, where established teams are already far ahead of the Blackhawks.
To get into the mix, the Blackhawks would first need to climb past the Utah Mammoth, St. Louis Blues and Nashville Predators, all of whom are sitting in the fringe-playoff range themselves. And even if Chicago managed that, the next hurdle would be enormous: the Colorado Avalanche, Minnesota Wild and Dallas Stars.
Picture the best-case version of the argument. Say the Blackhawks somehow finish third in the Central Division. Would they really be equipped to win a first-round series against Dallas, Minnesota or Colorado?
Or imagine Chicago sneaking in as the second Wild Card team. Would there be enough offense and depth to survive a first-round matchup with the Western Conference’s top seed, whether that ends up being the Avalanche, Oilers or Vegas Golden Knights?
That’s the part that makes the playoff buzz hard to buy right now. A more believable timeline for the Blackhawks is two to three seasons, not this fall. And for that to stay on track, they need to show clear progress this year.
If Chicago can make a standings jump similar to the one the San Jose Sharks made this past season, then the path starts to open. Until then, the Blackhawks look more like a team building toward the postseason than one ready to arrive there.
In Other News...
Marian Hossa And Duncan Keith Just Gave Blackhawks Fans A Reason To Smile
Marian Hossa was back on the ice with HK Dukla Trenn this week as he gets ready for Zdeno Charas farewell game on August 21, a gathering that will bring a few familiar faces from a very different Blackhawks era back into the same spotlight. Duncan Keith is also set to take part, giving Chicago fans a chance to see two pillars of the franchises championship run linked to the same event again, even if its only in an exhibition setting.
For a fan base that still measures a lot of its memories in the names Hossa and Keith, the news carries a little extra nostalgia at a time when the rest of the hockey world keeps moving forward. Elsewhere around the league, the Kings are preparing a major honor for Anze Kopitar, and former Rockford IceHogs forward Jackson Cates is heading to Germany, but the Chicago angle is the one that will resonate most with Blackhawks followers looking for one more reminder of what that era meant. [Read more 🡒]
Blackhawks Rebuild Could Force A Painful Decision On Their Young Core
The idea of an expansion draft is still hypothetical, but it offers a useful snapshot of where the Blackhawks are headed. The Athletic recently built a mock exercise for a 33rd NHL franchise and used a projected 2026-27 Chicago roster to map out how the club might handle its protection list, blending young pillars with a few established veterans. For a team in the middle of a rebuild, the exercise underscores how quickly a promising core can become expensive to keep together.
It also highlights the kind of roster squeeze that can follow once the talent starts to arrive all at once. Chicago has spent years stockpiling high-end youth, and the mock draft forces the question of which players can be safeguarded and which ones might be left vulnerable when the time comes. The article revisits how past expansion drafts have affected the Blackhawks, but the larger takeaway is simple: if the rebuild keeps on track, hard choices may not be far behind. [Read more 🡒]