Could the Blackhawks take another defenseman early in the 2026 NHL Draft?

Posted March 11, 2026 8:09 am

By Scott Powers

The Blackhawks are likely going to draft somewhere in the top seven this year. That seems pretty safe at this point.

With 18 games to go, the Blackhawks are bunched with four other teams with a points percentage lower than .500. It’s unlikely the Blackhawks or any of those other teams move upward and out of the pack. The Vancouver Canucks (.359 points percentage) are the most likely team to finish at the bottom and have the greatest odds at the No. 1 pick. After them, there’s a tight group of four with the Calgary Flames (.452), New York Rangers (.460), Blackhawks (.461) and St. Louis Blues (.468). Those four teams have been jockeying among four spots with every win and loss. The Winnipeg Jets are slightly above that group with a .500 points percentage after creating some separation lately.

From a drafting perspective, that all means the Blackhawks could draft anywhere from first to seventh. Even if they finished with the fifth-worst points percentage, they can’t drop more than two spots, so they would select seventh.

Which brings us to the conversation about the actual draft. The Athletic’s Corey Pronman released his latest 2026 draft rankings Tuesday. What jumps out about Pronman’s rankings is that there are five defensemen in his top seven players. Things can change, but that is four more defensemen than he had in his final top-seven rankings last year, one more than he had in 2024 and four more than in 2023. That speaks to the quality of the defensemen in this year’s draft. The 2021 and 2024 drafts were similar in that respect.

The only two forwards ranked in Pronman’s top seven are Gavin McKenna at No. 2 and Ivar Stenberg at No. 4. If either of those players is on the board when the Blackhawks are drafting come June, that would simplify their decision. The Blackhawks could use a highly skilled winger to complement their top six, and McKenna and Stenberg fit that bill. Either would help upgrade the Blackhawks’ forward pool and leap into a future top-six spot. They wouldn’t be far away from that either. It’s possible they could be in the NHL next season or the following season. Either Connor Bedard or Frank Nazar could have a new winger.

Now, if those players are gone or the Blackhawks have a top-two pick, that could change their situation. That’s not to say the Blackhawks will have the same draft board as Pronman. But Pronman usually fares well with the players in his Tier 1. Matthew Schaefer was the only player in that tier last year, Macklin Celebrini was the only player in 2024 and Connor Bedard was the only player in 2023. So to have two players, defenseman Chase Reid and McKenna, in the top tier this year is notable. That doesn’t mean Reid or McKenna will be as good as Schaefer, Celebrini or Bedard, but they are considered a level above the rest of the players in this year’s draft. Defenseman Keaton Verhoeff and Stenberg were previously in the top tier of Pronman’s rankings in January and were dropped a tier this time. Based on looking at other draft experts’ rankings, it appears most of them have Reid, McKenna, Verhoeff and Stenberg in the top four in various orders.

The big question is whether the Blackhawks would draft another defenseman that early? They took Kevin Korchinski at seventh overall in 2022 and Artyom Levshunov second overall in 2024. They also drafted Sam Rinzel 25th overall in 2022. Levshunov and Rinzel seem to be locks for the Blackhawks’ defensive core future. Rinzel is running the top power play now and Levshunov the second unit. Alex Vlasic (24 years old), Louis Crevier (24) and Wyatt Kaiser (23) also appear to be in the Blackhawks’ future plans. Korchinski and Ethan Del Mastro (23) have also gotten NHL games this season.

Korchinski is the one Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson is often asked about because Korchinski was drafted so high, played a full season in the NHL at 19 and has mostly played in the AHL the last two seasons. The Blackhawks recently reassigned Korchinski back to the Rockford IceHogs.

“Look, Kevin’s a 21-year-old defenseman,” Davidson said Friday. “If you ask me if he’s going to benefit more from popping into the lineup here or playing big minutes in Rockford, it’d be playing big minutes in Rockford. And so, that’s where we see his development best served right now. That’s why we did it.

“I think it’s just we need to get Kevin minutes and keep getting him minutes because we have seen some really nice strides and we want to keep that positive momentum going into the offseason. But we’re big fans of Kevin. He’s got a ton of upside, a ton of ability. He’s still raw. He’s still getting into the pro game and learning through that process and that development process. He’s someone we really like, we have a lot of time for.”

The Blackhawks are planning for Korchinski to be in the NHL next season. He’ll no longer be waiver exempt next season, and there’s almost no chance they’d consider putting him through waivers. They were in the same position with Crevier at the start of this season, and they didn’t put him through waivers because they thought he’d get claimed. The Blackhawks could be in a similar boat with Del Mastro no longer being waiver exempt next season, either.

What the Blackhawks’ draft decision-making likely comes down to is 1) what they think of all their young defensemen’s potential and likelihood of reaching that potential, 2) whether they think they have enough in that group and 3) whether any the defensemen available in this year’s draft are enough of an upgrade to make a difference. Levshunov and Rinzel appear to have the highest ceiling, especially offensively in the group, but they’re not sure things. Crevier and Vlasic have been the most consistent, but they’re both a little older and fill more specific defensive roles. Kaiser has shown the potential to fall somewhere offensively and defensively between those two sets of players, but he’s still seeking consistency. Korchinski may still pan out, but he may not. His potential may ultimately be lower than Levshunov and Rinzel’s.

From what I’ve gathered from Pronman, Reid and Verhoeff, who are both right-handed, have potential upsides likely higher than any of the Blackhawks defensemen. They’re not expected to hit the NHL as Schaefer did, but they are projected to be top-pairing, impactful defensemen. If the Blackhawks deem either a more sure thing, that could sway them.

If the Blackhawks drafted another defenseman, they’d undoubtedly take heat from some of the fan base. There is a vocal group that already says they’ll never forgive Davidson for choosing Levshunov over forward Ivan Demidov in 2024. Demidov went fifth to the Montreal Canadiens. To take another defenseman over a forward with a top-seven pick will likely enrage that group.

To be fair, Davidson has gone about his roster construction based on what he believes will be best for the Blackhawks in the future. He moved on from Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews. He traded Brandon Hagel and Alex DeBrincat. He prioritized building the defense first and drafted Korchinski and Levshunov because of that. Those weren’t all popular decisions.

Davidson’s approach likely won’t change at this year’s draft either. The Blackhawks look at every draft as its own entity and draft based on those players available. If Davidson, director of amateur scouting Mike Doneghey and company can draft someone they believe is the best player available and can give them a better chance at winning in the future, that’s who they will likely take, regardless of position. So, yes, drafting a defenseman is probably possible.

As of now, the Blackhawks certainly have a need for top-six NHL forwards. There isn’t enough offense in their roster now. Bedard is becoming everything they hoped for. They believed strongly enough in Frank Nazar’s potential to lock him up to a seven-year extension. He hasn’t been consistent for a full NHL season yet, but they think he’ll get there. Anton Frondell and Roman Kantserov are the next potential top-six forwards in line. The Blackhawks are hoping both are in the NHL next season. A year from now, depending on how those players are performing and whether Nick Lardis, Oliver Moore, Ryan Greene and others take steps, there could be a different perception around the forward group. Sacha Boisvert and Marek Vanacker, two more forward first-round picks, could be in Chicago or Rockford next season, too.

Davidson isn’t oblivious to the Blackhawks’ current lack of offense or who they have already drafted. As much leash as he’s been given in rebuilding the Blackhawks, he knows he’ll eventually be judged on the results of the team and nothing else will matter. Right now, he’s still asking for patience. He knows not everyone agrees with his every move, but he believes in what they’re building.

“I can’t really address every quibble that someone might have with the vision, but that’s natural,” Davidson said after the trade deadline. “There’s probably teams around the league that the fan base is asking to get younger, and when you’re younger, they’re asking to get a little bit older. That’s fandom; that’s what happens. Whether people want to hear it or not, we’re committed to a vision here. We’ve picked a path, we’re committed to that and we’re going to execute within that vision. We’re continuing to do that. I believe in these young players; I believe in this group of young prospects that we have coming, both here and not in the NHL. As they continue to mature, as they continue to get comfortable and develop into the players we see them becoming and expect them to become in this league, that’s going to drive our team’s success.

“That doesn’t mean that it’s only going to come from these players. There’s opportunities along the way — I would hope and expect, in the future, to add and inject more talent. But we can only deal with what we know, and we know all these players coming up and we believe in them wholeheartedly, not just with rose-colored glasses, that they can get us to where we want to go. That’s the vision. That’s what we’re committed to, and we believe in that. We’ve got a ton of young players on the way. We’ve got a ton of draft capital that is there for us to use moving forward. We’re positioned very well. It’s something that doesn’t happen overnight. We’re such a young team here; we’re, for the most part, quite an inexperienced team in the landscape of the NHL. That takes time, especially on the back end. It’s a tough position for young players, but we’re seeing steps, we’re seeing improvement, we’re seeing what we need to see to believe we’re on the right path.”

Come June, the Blackhawks will have the opportunity to add another significant piece to their vision. Just don’t be surprised if it’s another defenseman or forward who’s named with that first pick.