If the NHL ever gets to 33 teams, the Blackhawks could be staring at an uncomfortable choice: protect the kids, or risk losing one of the young defensemen they’ve spent years developing.
That’s the scenario The Athletic laid out in a mock Expansion Draft built around a fictional new franchise. Under those rules, Chicago would be in a tight spot because of how much young homegrown talent is already on the roster. In a separate look at the best protection strategy, The Athletic went with the eight-skater, one-goalie format and kept Connor Bedard, Tyler Bertuzzi, Frank Nazar, Oliver Moore, Bowen Byram, Sam Rinzel, Alex Vlasic, Artyom Levshunov and goalie Spencer Knight.
From there, once a few bigger names were off the board, the mock expansion team landed on 24-year-old defenseman Wyatt Kaiser.
Kaiser was taken 81st overall in the 2020 NHL Draft and only last season became a full-time NHL player. He scored six goals and finished with 17 points in 77 games.
His path to that point was gradual: nine games in 2022-23, 32 in 2023-24 and another 57 in 2024-25. In all, he has appeared in 175 NHL games over five seasons and has 10 goals and 35 points.
The exercise also serves as a reminder of how different these expansion decisions have looked for Chicago before. In 2021, when Seattle entered the league, the Blackhawks’ protection list included Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews and Alex DeBrincat.
The Kraken’s pick from Chicago was John Quenneville, a former first-rounder selected 30th overall by the New Jersey Devils. Quenneville played only nine games for the Blackhawks and never appeared for Seattle.
Go back to 2017, when Vegas joined the NHL, and the Blackhawks were protecting the backbone of their recent dynasty: Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook and Corey Crawford. Chicago lost Trevor van Riemsdyk, the 2015 Stanley Cup winner, and the Golden Knights moved him the next day to the Washington Capitals.
That’s the backdrop here. The Blackhawks have spent much of this decade rebuilding their system and turning draft picks into real NHL pieces, which means an expansion draft could finally put one of those developed players in the crosshairs. It would be the cost of keeping the core together as the team gets closer to contender status again.
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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 🡒]
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The harsh part is how crowded the path still looks. The Blackhawks are trying to rise in a division and conference that do not leave much room for a young team learning on the job, and the relative inexperience on the roster makes every step forward harder to bank. Unless Chicago takes a major leap, a realistic playoff return still looks more like a two- to three-season question than a one-year fix. [Read more 🡒]