Two seasons ago, there were very limited acquisitions made for the Chicago Blackhawks and a lot of spots were left open to young players and rookies. This didn't turn out so well because not very many of them were ready.
Kyle Davidson overcorrected last season and brought in too many veterans to fill spots, multiple of whom retired after this past season. This didn't allow for players like Frank Nazar to even make the team out of training camp and led to a player like TJ Brodie being signed for multiple years,
It appears as though Davidson is splitting the difference, but leaning more towards the younger side for the Blackhawks. Yes, Andre Burakovsky and Sam Lafferty were brought in, but Burakovsky offers more skill than the average addition and Lafferty could play half the games next season or fewer.
Not only did the Blackhawks cut down on the additions, they have lots of cap space to utilize moving forward because of this while opening up spots for the younger players to more easily earn them.
These players include Lukas Reichel, Colton Dach, Ryan Greene, Landon Slaggert, Oliver Moore, and even Aidan Thompson, who hasn't played a game in the NHL yet. The Blackhawks didn't add on defense, and that was the right move. Many more d-men are available to be NHL options this time around, including Artyom Levshunov and Sam Rinzel who came in later last season as well as Wyatt Kaiser, Ethan Del Mastro, Nolan Allan, Kevin Korchinski, and Louis Crevier.
The Blackhawks are a rebuilding team. It doesn't help anyone by bringing in too many veterans so the prospects are held back and not able to earn NHL spots. There is plenty of room on the team ahead of this coming training camp and there aren't exactly options to trade for to change that in the later months of the summer. This is generally what the roster is going to look like as the preseason comes next month and young players will get chances.
