By Zackery Robert
Coming in at seventh in this draft day history series is a team that has had some of the, if not the, best drafting success in the 2000s. Drafting quality players and future Hall of Fame players. The Chicago Blackhawks have one of the best track records in the last 20 years when it comes to their drafting and development and it led to three stanley cups in under 10 years. We will take a look at some of those players who made the cut and some that just didn’t quite fit.
To start off the ones that fit right in we will backtrack to the 2007 draft where Chicago won the lottery and moved up from the second to first slot and chose Patrick Kane. Kane was a perennial all star for the Hawks. Not only contributing heavily in team success but also personally. Kane won three Stanley cups with the Hawks and he took home one of the Conn Smythe trophies as playoff MVP during their runs. Kane also won a Calder trophy, Art Ross, Hart and Ted Lindsay trophy during his time in Chicago. Kane was just traded this season to the Rangers ending his tenure with the Hawks, the former number one overall pick ends up with 1161 games, 446 goals and 779 assists for a whopping 1225 points in those 1161 games.
Coming up next is Winnipeg born centre Johnathan Toews, a staunch two way forward and captain of the Hawks who helped guide them to three Stanley cup victories. Toews was drafted in 2006 third overall to the Blackhawks and began playing for them in the 2007-2008 season. Toews has played his entire 15 year career in Chicago and has become an all time great for the team. With almost 900 points in just under 1100 games the two way forward has definitely found himself up in the rafters with the rest of the Chicago elite once he hangs up his skates.
Third was a rough one with two players sticking out as great choices. Both Duncan Keith and Denis Savard were Blackhawk legends but for arguments sake this spot goes to Duncan Keith. Keith was selected in the second round 54th overall in the 2002 draft. Making his NHL debut in the 2005-2006 season Keith would only need four seasons to capture the first of his two Norris trophies. Along with the two Norris trophies Keith was also the backbone on defence for the Hawks during their dynasty run, earning himself a Conn Smythe in the 2014-2015 season. Keith was a fan favourite in Chicago and will definitely see his number in the rafters in Chicago in the not so distant future.
Now we will talk about the picks that did not go so well. To begin we will go back to the 2000 draft, Chicago held the 10th and the 11th picks that year and selected Mikhail Yakubov 10th and Pavel Vorobiev 11th. Both were Russian forwards and their total combined games played with the Chicago Blackhawks were 97, Yakubov played 40 and Vorobiev played 57. Yakubov scored a total of 11 points in his 40 career games with the Hawks and Vorobiev totalled 25 points in his 57 career games with the Hawks. Both players spent a large majority of their careers in Russia so the fact that Chicago had two back to back high picks that both did not pan out hurts even more and lands these two picks on the list of wishing for a Time Machine.
For the third and final player on this list we will have to go back to the 1989 draft when Chicago held the sixth overall pick that year. The Hawks went with defenseman Adam Bennett and in his total of 21 games played for the Blackhawks he scored zero goals and recorded two assists. He ended up playing only one more season in Edmonton where in 48 games he scored three goals and six assists for his total career points of nine. In this draft there were a handful of much better options that were available for the Hawks, Bobby Holik, Adam Foote, Olaf Kolzig, and Patrice Brisebois but opted for Bennett instead and it did not pan out which puts Bennett on this list of missed picks.
Flash forward to 2023 and the Blackhawks are in full blown rebuild and are out of the playoffs and look to end up with a top three pick in this year’s draft. They are in need of a new superstar to rebuild around so being that they will end up with one of the best picks in the draft it would make sense that they would target the following three players, Connor Bedard, Adam Fantilli and Leo Carlsson. They should go away from selecting Michkov as he will take too long to come into the league, if at all, and given their rebuild status it would make sense to use this high pick for a player who will be in the lineup within one season. Chicago currently has a lineup of 11 picks in the 2023 draft and many in the first two rounds, 1st, 1st (TB), 2nd, 2nd (OTT), 2nd (NYR), 2nd (TB), 3rd, 3rd (DAL), 4th, 5th, 7th.
For more information on the 2023 NHL Draft class be sure to pick up your copy of the comprehensive DraftPro 2023 NHL Draft Guide.