NHL: Chicago Blackhawks, 2025-26 review
Two hundred and seventy-five goals against. That number, one of the ugliest in the league, is where any honest look at Chicago’s season has to start. The Blackhawks finished 29-39-14 for 72 points and eighth in the Central, a sixth straight spring with nothing to play for. The blue line leaked all year. But Connor Bedard cleared 70 points, and that is the number the front office keeps pointing at.
Key data
2025-26 record: 29-39-14 (213 goals for, 275 against)
2025-26 NHL standing: 8th in the Central Division
2025-26 top scorer: Tyler Bertuzzi (32)
2025-26 top playmaker: Connor Bedard (45)
2025-26 points leader: Connor Bedard (75)
Average roster age (2026-27): 26.5 years
Cap space available (2026-27): $2.42M
Recent moves (offseason)
Arrivals:
- Bowen Byram (D)
- Jordan Greenway (F)
- Cole Smith (D)
- Ian Cole (D)
- Patrick Kane (F)
Departures:
- Louis Crevier (D)
- Andre Burakovsky (F)
- Ilya Mikheyev (F)
The contracts say more than the signings
Chicago, future contracts and draft picks
Bringing Patrick Kane back 16 years after he first walked into the room was a gesture, not a hockey decision. It does very little for a roster at this stage of a rebuild. It does plenty for a fan base that has spent six years watching other teams play in April.
The structural work is elsewhere. Chicago has been busy locking its core into place for the long term. Bedard is signed long term at $15M a year and remains the whole point of the exercise. Frank Nazar is tied up through 2032-33. Byram gives the blue line a piece it did not have, on a deal that jumps to $12.5M next year. The draft capital survived intact too: there is no first-rounder in 2027, but back-to-back firsts land in 2028 and 2029.
What a 37-year-old is actually for
Kane is not here to score 80 points. That job belongs to Bedard now, and everyone in the building knows it. What Kane brings is a daily example of how a top-level NHL player operates, delivered to a group young enough that most of them grew up watching him do it.
The group is worth the investment. The Athletic ranks Chicago’s prospect pool as the best in the league, with eight recent draftees inside its top 100, a mark no other organization has hit. Anton Frondell and Sam Rinzel sit behind Bedard and Nazar, both of whom are already NHL regulars.
So the question this season is not whether Kane can find his old legs. It is whether the kids grow faster with him in the room than they would without him.
Player to watch: Bowen Byram (D)
Chicago paid up for Byram because it thinks he is the No 1 defenseman this rebuild has never had. There is one problem with that theory. He has never been asked to be one. In Colorado and again in Buffalo, there was always a bigger name absorbing the hard minutes.
There is nobody to hide behind here. The heavy matchups, the penalty kill, the third period with a one-goal lead, all of it lands on him from October. Whether he can carry that is the single biggest variable on the roster after Bedard’s shoulder.
2026-27 goal
Projected Chicago Blackhawks lines 2026-27, Bedard injured to start the season
With Kane and Byram in the building, the patience-only script has run out of road. The opening month complicates things badly. Bedard had shoulder surgery after a training camp injury and is expected to miss around four weeks, so Chicago starts the year without the player everything runs through.
The realistic aim is to end the six-year drought, or at minimum still be mathematically alive in the wild-card race in March. Getting there means Nazar, Frondell and Kantserov produce while the franchise center is in a sling, with Kane steadying the room and Byram steadying the defense. Survive October and the rest of it becomes possible.
My prediction
I have Chicago last in the division. The rebuild is real and it is working, but the roster is not there yet, and losing Bedard for the first month is likely to cost them four or five games they would otherwise have had a shot at.
Photo credit: wallpapersafari.com | aarond
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