(670 The Score) Despite the Blackhawks' recent downward trajectory that has left them stuck in hockey purgatory, general manager Stan Bowman pushed back at the possibility of the organization undergoing a full-on rebuild anytime soon.
"I don't know if that really happens in the hockey world today," Bowman said on the Mully & Haugh Show on Tuesday morning in response to a question about the possible dismantling of the core and team. "It may happen in other sports, but that term of 'dismantling' teams is not really the way that our sport operates. There's a lot of hypothetical situations that you could ask me about. I don't know that it makes a lot of sense to try to go down the road in answering exactly what's going to happen if A, then B. Because I've never liked to go down those type of things. There's a lot of things we don't know. Things change in the business with your team, with players' performance. There are a lot of things that are hard to assume, and I think that's why we just try to adapt to the situation we have rather than give you a specific answer on if this happens, then that's going to happen."
The Blackhawks are on track to miss the playoffs for the third straight season, as they currently sit in 12th in the Western Conference. After winning the Stanley Cup in 2010, 2013 and 2013, they have a roster beset by big contracts from underperforming and/or aging players. beyond that, their youngsters as a group haven't made a big enough impact yet to change the team's fortunes.
"This is a winning business," Bowman said. "We understand that. I think what's happened over the last couple of years was, it's a correction from where we were. There's no question about that. It's something we want to correct by trying to push our team forward with incorporating some new, younger players. I think for a number of years, we had the same group of players year after year. We had a lot of stability. That doesn't always work though as time goes on and players are on new contracts and players age. Things change, and you enter a different era. We still have some of those players remaining from those teams that had a lot of success, and they're still good players. So we're trying to build up around them, and it's hard to do that overnight. We're still trying to be a competitive team, which I think we've shown we can do. When we play our best hockey, we can beat anyone in the league. We're trying to find that consistency to do it all the time. So as far as the bigger picture, we're balancing the short term and the long term. It's not always the results you're looking for, but I think we're still putting a competitive team out there. We want these guys to learn how to win. The younger players don't have the experience of what it takes to win, but we know in time, they're going to lead us to some really good things."
