The Chicago Blackhawks continue their period of transition under GM Stan Bowman, but have his offseason moves been enough to get the team back to the winning ways that saw better than 22,000 fans pack United Center during the glory years of the 2010's?
Gone are the likes of defensive mainstay Duncan Keith and (on paper, though his playing career is over) Brent Seabrook, who were both dealt over the summer. Arriving into the Windy City are the likes of Seth Jones, Jake McCabe, Tyler Johnson, Marc-Andre Fleury, Caleb Jones, and Jujhar Khaira.
But how soon can the team get back to contention?
The Athletic polled fans across the hockey world to gauge their confidence level of their team's management, and the Blackhawks came in at a rather pedestrian 25th place out of 32.
Check out what some fans had to say, as well as author Dom Luszczyszyn:
Happy with the offseason moves, disgusted by the lack of humility covering up a sexual abuse scandal”
“I have a hard time supporting this team with the management teams that failed to protect its players in 2010 still in charge.”
“Straight 1’s across the board. As long as current management doesn’t acknowledge their role in the sexual predator scandal, it overshadows every single thing they do.”
“This front office needs to be transparent about the findings of the current investigation and someone needs to take responsibility for what happened. The issues are not going to go away.”
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"Chicago was once the league’s premier front office, a picture-perfect regime with an excellent culture that knew how to win. Since the team’s last Cup in 2015, its reputation has dwindled as the team has made countless failed attempts to recapture that glory. This year’s offseason does look promising in terms of a return to the playoffs — even if the biggest acquisition was a vast overpayment in terms of acquiring and signing cost — but that’s been greatly overshadowed by scandal. The facade of the perfect franchise is shattered now with the ongoing investigation into former video coach Brad Aldrich."
It is very hard to separate what the front office does to build an on-ice product from the off-ice failures brought to light this summer. That’s something many Blackhawks fans mentioned in the survey and it’s hard to argue against given most of the regime remains intact from the time of the allegations. It’s a dark mark on the franchise, one that an active offseason won’t distract from." - Luszczyszyn
