Chicago Blackhawks
The Penguins are showing what the Blackhawks could have been

The Chicago Blackhawks made a tough decision under general manager Kyle Davidson, deciding not to re-sign Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane and closing the door on the 19 and 88 era in the Windy City at the end of the 2022-23 NHL Season.
For Chicago, the end of one era coincided with the birth of another as Connor Bedard was drafted first overall in 2023. While success hasn’t come easily for the Hawks and Bedard, at least they are heading in the right direction. Which, brings us to the Pittsburgh Penguins.
The Pittsburgh Penguins last won a playoff round in 2017-18, a year after winning the second of back to back cups, Pittsburgh won just one playoff round, and since then they have struggled.
The Penguins have made it to the playoffs five times – including the bubble play in since winning it all in 2017. The last two seasons saw Pittsburgh just miss the postseason, competing to the very end in the wild card race, but alas, they finished on the outside looking in.
This year things look even more unforgiving for Sidney Crosby’s squad. Pittsburgh entered last night’s road matchup in Columbus with a 6-9-3 record. Playing a Columbus team with a 0-5-1 record in their last six games should have given the Pens some confidence, as should the fact they are 11-0-2 in their previous 13 matchups going into last night.
Despite momentum being on their side, Pittsburgh lost 6-2, a resounding defeat for a team that can’t take too many more missed opportunities. With the Pens’ struggles much has been said about the beginning of the youth movement and the need to make some shakeups on the roster. That is all valid, and it will be interesting to see how things shake up, but for the Blackhawks, this also shows they probably made the right call with Toews and Kane.
The Penguins still have Crosby, Malkin and Letang, but the fans no longer are showing up like they used to. Attendance is down, and the Penguins are off to a poor start, with little hope of working their way out of the slump.
This could have been the world for Toews and Kane and the Blackhawks, struggling to push to the postseason only to fall short with little development to show for it at the end of the season. The Hawks have truly only been rebuilding for a few seasons now under Davidson and they already have one of the top farm systems in the league with more assets on the way.
So, here is a the question for Blackhawks fans, would you rather watch your team try to float like Pittsburgh right now? Or buy in to the wave of the future the way Davidson did, making moves to help usher in a new era?