The Blackhawks’ rebuild has been a long and painful process, but its architect — general manager Kyle Davidson — continues to receive the full support of Hawks chairman and owner Danny Wirtz.
Wirtz expressed strong optimism in the franchise’s on- and off-ice future during an interview with the Sun-Times on Monday.
“Everything Kyle set out to do, he continues to deliver on,” Wirtz said. “All of that is predicated on ultimately building a winning team, by all means. But I can only evaluate everything he’s done, and he continues to back up his choices.
“He has built an incredibly exciting pipeline of talent that is coming to the surface now, and we have a lot more even to look forward to. From that standpoint, I’m very pleased with Kyle. He has built a great internal organization to support the development of our young players. He has built a great coaching staff this season, with the new coaches in place. And he has built a [good] culture within hockey operations.”
The four-year anniversary of Davidson’s promotion to GM is coming up, and the team’s cumulative record underneath him isn’t pretty: 107-187-35 entering Monday.
Much of that losing was by design, though, and the prospects drafted with the countless high draft picks are now finally reaching the NHL. Wirtz said he’s glad the team’s fan base can now witness those players’ development with their own eyes, which should help them understand better the purpose of all of the pain.
The prospects aren’t guaranteed, of course, to turn out well enough to transform the Hawks into contenders again. Wirtz admitted he’s “as anxious as anyone to see these prospects start to pop.” But his belief that they eventually will hasn’t wavered.
“If we weren’t having some success and seeing some of these players start to break through, I would be more concerned,” he said. “But the folks we’re seeing, it’s really exciting. There’s nothing better than seeing a young player start to figure it out in the league and start to find that confidence.”
And how long will Wirtz’s belief last? Is there a deadline — or even a timeline — for the team’s breakthrough in his head?
“My expectations are based around improvement,” he added. “We need to see positive improvement, moving in the right direction. That is, of course, on a standings level, but the standings are a result of our young players developing into the kinds of players that we know they can be. If you focus on those as the inputs, I believe the outputs — of increasing our standing — will flow from there.”
Salary-cap effect
The NHL’s skyrocketing salary cap will influence the process, and in the short term, it has arguably hurt the Hawks. They had been positioned as one of relatively few teams with cap flexibility; now every team has cap space to burn.
That squashed the trade and free-agent markets this offseason, because teams had no need to jettison existing big contracts and plenty of space to re-sign pending free agents to big new contracts. That prevented the Hawks from acquiring any established stars.
In the long run, though, the skyrocketing cap — estimated to reach $113.5 million in 2027-28 and continue rising from there — could benefit wealthier, bigger-market teams willing to continue spending all the way to the cap. That includes the Hawks.
“We will spend appropriately — where it makes sense — for us to go and win Stanley Cups,” Wirtz said. “That’s been a hallmark of us during the salary-cap era. We’re able to [plan ahead for] it now, and we’re fortunate we also have a really good business foundation here in Chicago to support that investment.
“From a cap management standpoint…it gives Kyle a little [more] visibility as to how he needs to plan and grow, knowing there’s going to be growing salaries across the board as he goes forward. He’s making very smart, deliberate choices.”
There will be pressure on the Hawks’ business department to keep revenue growth at a sufficient rate to support the additional spending on players, but Wirtz said the franchise’s financial state is “very solid” at the moment.
“Given team performance, [we’ve done] exceptionally well, considering,” he said.