Don’t mistake the Blackhawks’ silence for surrender this offseason

The Chicago Blackhawks made very few major moves in the offseason so far when you don't count the draft, and that had them bringing back Ryan Donato on a four-year deal at a $4 million AAV and trading for Sam Lafferty and Andre Burakovsky.

Other than that, the Blackhawks never got in on the action throughout the first two days of free agency, and it may leave fans further dreading the 2025-26 season.

But I'm not taking this as a sign of surrender, even if some fans may actually want this to happen with the Gavin McKenna Sweepstakes going on for 2026. Yeah, it's easy to have visions of Connor Bedard teaming up with McKenna, and such a dynamic duo would mean a 180 for the Hawk in a few short years.

But I'm not about to sit here and think a do-nothing offseason means an ill-fated regular season. This time last year, a flurry of signings led me to think the Hawks would improve to something around the 70-80-point threshold, and wow, was I wrong. So, even though the opposite approach went down this offseason, I'm making zero assumptions here.

A near-do-nothing offseason could help the Blackhawks mesh more as a group

Youth is a good way to define the Blackhawks heading into 2025-26. But, here's what I like about the Hawks. You now have Teuvo Teravainen and Tyler Bertuzzi back for Year 2, plus Andre Burakovsky, a surging Ryan Donato, and a 20-goal scorer in Ilya Mikheyev. And I haven't even mentioned players like Frank Nazar, who you know will take a step forward.

No, it's not a deep group of forwards, but those who've been in town for over a year now have experience playing alongside one another, with Burakovsky joining the mix. Not a playoff-caliber group by any means, but a foundational one that could suprise even the most critical fans.

Turning the page to the defensive rotation, and I see much of the same thing. Right now, the Hawks are still young and inexperienced on the blue line, but expect physical play for Connor Murphy, plus an uptick in production from Artyom Levshunov in his first full season with the club, and an ascending Alex Vlasic.

Sam Rinzel, Kevin Korchinski, and Nolan Allen should all be back, plus Wyatt Kaiser and Louis Crevier. Not all of them will be with the big club, but once again, it's a core that's going into 2025-26 with more experience than it did last season. And experience can take them a long way, especially as the season progresses.

So, if you want my primary takeaway, it's that Kyle Davidson knew what the rest of us did - this team isn't ready for another influx of talent, sans a bottom-six forward and a top-six guy who needed a change of scenery. Not at the stage they're at. But it also doesn't mean they'll end up landing the highest odds for Gavin McKenna 11 months from now.