After another early sweep in the first round of the 2019/20 playoffs the writing was on the wall for the Blackhawks. The time had come to in some sense start over. After 13 straight seasons in the playoffs, highlighted by two Western Conference Championships and the Stanley Cup 2016/17, it was time for the team to move out some of the established talent and restock the farm system with up and coming players.

The past few months the Blackhawks traded away Zach Hyman, Jaccob Slavin, Rickard Rakell, William Karlsson, Scott Mayfield, Robert Hagg and James Reimer. That’s 7 roster players from last years team gone in a brief period of time. In exchange the Blackhawks got mostly draft picks in the 2021 and the 2022 drafts where they added Luke Hughes and Aaatu Raty among other young talents and where they now have 12 picks in the upcoming draft.

So, who will play this season for the Hawks? Well, the team didn’t only subtract during this offseason but brought in some new names aswell. First and foremost the team will welcome some young players into next year’s lineup. Pius Suter, Jesse Puljujarvi, Brandon Hagel, Kale Clague and Kevin Lankinen all looks to be playing regularly for the Blackhawks in the upcoming season. Via trade Chicago also brought back a familiar face in Logan Couture who looks to be playing on the top line with Patrick Kane and Martin Necas. Couture was an important part of the 2016/17 Cup winning team for the Blackhawks so his skill and leadership will be a welcome addition to the team.

It was however during free agency that the most additions came to pass where Chicago added 5 players on 4 year deals to the roster. On defense Chicago agreed to terms with Connor Murphy, David Savard and Danny DeKeyser and at forward they added veteran forward Paul Stastny and bounce back candidate Tyler Seguin. Now most of the deals were very team friendly, but Seguin got the max cap hit in 9 million dollars per year for 4 years. Surely this seems like a steep overpayment for a player that is rated 63 OV this season, but a healthy Tyler Seguin is an elite player and the Blackhawks are gambling on him having quite a bounce back year.

So, how is the opening night line up shaping up? As things stand now it looks to be:

Logan Couture-Martin Necas-Patrick Kane
Brandon Saad-Paul Stastny-Jesse Puljujarvi
Pius Suter-Kirby Dach-Victor Olofsson
Brandon Hagel-Tyler Seguin-Tyler Motte

Duncan Keith-Connor Murphy
Danny DeKeyser-David Savard
Kale Clague-Adam Boqvist

Kevin Lankinen
John Gibson

Now, that is unlikely to be a playoff team, but is is a team that should be good enough to put up a decent fight on any given night while the young players get a chance to develop.

The Blackhawks time as an Elite team may be on pause, but let the other teams beware of the fact that it is far from over!