Dietz: Time to kick Blackhawks’ rebuild into overdrive

Few NHL coaches garner more respect than Tampa Bay's Jon Cooper.

Obviously, the 57-year-old has been blessed with loaded rosters, but he knows how to get the most out of every player and has guided the Lightning to four Stanley Cup Final appearances in 10 years.

Players love him and the feeling is mutual. The result is a winning culture matched by few other franchises over that span.

In Chicago, it's the polar opposite. The Blackhawks' locker room is tense. Players are getting snippy and delivering terse, one-sentence answers with reporters. Executives are wearing stone-cold faces of disgust after games.

After a 6-2 shellacking by Seattle last week, defenseman Alex Vlasic said morale had sunk to “probably the worst it's been all year. … We're not really making any progress as a team.”

That was after a fifth straight loss. The streak reached six after a 3-1 defeat to the Kings on Thursday and it hit seven after a 4-1 setback Saturday at St. Louis.

The skid mercifully came to an end Sunday, with Tyler Bertuzzi (goal, 2 assists), Ryan Donato (2 goals) and Connor Bedard (goal, assist) leading the Hawks to a 7-4 win over visiting Philadelphia.

While some believe better days are ahead, one has to wonder: Can prolonged periods of suckage demoralize a star like Bedard to the point where he never learns to win at this level? It's a question I posed to Cooper before the Lightning beat the Hawks on Jan. 24 at the UC.

“That's a tough question to answer,” said Cooper, who paused for several seconds before continuing. “Losing stinks and it can wear on you. The scare is that it gets acceptable. That's an organization thing.

“There are some organizations in this league that haven't made the playoffs for a number of years, and it's tough. It's tough on the fan base.”

Especially when a large chunk of that fan base can't watch on TV.

The Hawks haven't made the playoffs in a normal season since 2017. (They made it in 2020 when 24 teams qualified. And, remember, the Hawks were Team No. 24.).

The 2024-25 Hawks have the second-worst points percentage in the league at .359. This after going 23-53-6 (.317) in 2023-24.

Obviously, Bedard's only been part of this malaise for two seasons. It's hardly like being in Buffalo, where the Sabres haven't qualified for the postseason for a league-record 13 seasons.

There's no doubt Hawks GM Kyle Davidson and his team heard the recent musings of Craig Button and Elliotte Friedman. Both analysts said last week if they were advising Bedard they would not allow him to sign a contract extension this July.

“The Chicago Blackhawks are awful,” Button said on the Donnie & Dhali show. “If I was Bedard's agent I wouldn't sign him to any extension.

“There's no benefit to signing early. He'll make the same money if he waits until (July 2026). Plus, waiting opens him up to potential offer sheets (from other teams).”

Offer sheets are rare, but Friedman was in agreement with Button that it makes sense to wait until the next CBA is finalized.

Losing Bedard, who has said publicly he loves playing in Chicago, seems like a long shot.

But it's not impossible.

So no more dawdling for Davidson. It's time to keep the pedal to the metal and shift this rebuild into overdrive.

We all know teams can rocket up the standings if they are run properly. The best example is Colorado, which became a perennial playoff team one year after going 22-56-4 in 2016-17. That could happen here, but only if Davidson continues making shrewd moves like the Seth Jones trade, which netted him goaltender Spencer Knight and a first-round pick.

He's got a very long to-do list, which we will start attacking in this space next week.

John Dietz worked at the Daily Herald from 1998-2024, covering the Blackhawks from 2014-24. You can reach him at jdietz6917@hotmail.com.