(670 The Score) While Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson understands that landing the No. 1 overall pick in the NHL Draft – which will be generational prospect Connor Bedard – could accelerate the team’s rebuilding timeline, he has also stressed that it’s crucial for his front office to utilize caution when making roster additions, particularly with salary cap space.
The Blackhawks project to have more than $40 million in cap space this summer, but Davidson doesn’t want to tie (much of) it up on long-term deals. He’s more interested in how that cap space can help his team over a longer time frame, and his ideal vision is to use most of it internally on players whom Chicago has added through the draft.
“The draft picks, the cap space, it’s all by design – and for good reason in this rebuild,” Davidson said on the Mully & Haugh Show on Friday morning. “The one thing about the cap space – and I’ve been asked about it a lot with respect to now what do you this summer? – you know what, I think what we’ve seen and how we’ve how sort of studied the landscape in the NHL is that you can really stunt your ceiling and your upside as a team by spending too early. And hopefully we’ve got enough good players coming in, young good players coming in with the new core that you know what? They’re going to require most of that salary cap space. And the last thing we want to do is acquire all these young players, all this exciting young talent, all this great draft capital and we use it, they get here and then we jump too early in free agency in our life cycle and now we can’t pay some of those great, exciting young players. That’s the last thing that we want.”
The Blackhawks had 59 points this past season, the second-fewest in the NHL. They then capitalized in a big way on their 11.5% chances to land the No. 1 pick in the NHL Draft, winning the lottery to put themselves in line to draft the touted Bedard on June 28.
As exciting as that is, Davidson knows there’s still a long process ahead of the Blackhawks.
“We’re going to be really intentional about it,” Davidson said of how Chicago approaches free agency this summer. “We’re going to stay focused on acquiring the best young talent that we can.
“We’re going to see what options come our way, but we’re going to stay dedicated to our path here and just try to build this thing through quality youth.”
The Blackhawks hold 11 picks in the upcoming NHL Draft. Eight of those are in the first three rounds – two in the first round, four in the second round and two in the third round. They’re likely to trade one or more of those picks, Davidson said, either to move up for a player they like or to shift the selections back a year or two to a future draft.
“That’s a lot,” Davidson said. “I will concede that. That’s a lot. It’s probably unlikely that we make all those picks.”
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