Blackhawks captain Nick Foligno spoke several times during the latter portion of this season — as well as during exit interviews Thursday — about “weeding out” players who aren’t emotionally invested in the organization’s long-term plan.
Interim coach Anders Sorensen, meanwhile, spoke about a hidden “undercurrent” that made the Hawks more difficult to manage than it appeared from the outside.
That all likely alludes to the inevitable tensions of a losing team going through an immense roster turnover from one generation to the next, which the Hawks did. They started the season with one of the NHL’s oldest rosters and ended it with one of the youngest.
General manager Kyle Davidson said he intends to be “more selective and specific” with his additions this summer, meaning he will (as expected) focus on bringing in one or two high-end players rather than a big crowd of mediocre signings like last summer. Internally developed young players will represent a large percentage of next season’s roster.
For the team’s relatively few longstanding veterans — such as Foligno, Connor Murphy and Jason Dickinson — that dynamic might temporarily increase their leadership responsibilities because there won’t be as many veterans to share the load. But it will also require them to begin passing the torch to the youngsters, who are the team’s future leaders.
“That’s the cool part of sports, when you have an opportunity to really build it from the ground up,” Foligno said. “These guys I think have realized that. I hope they take it to heart this summer and come in with that attitude and a little bit of swagger. This is their team. As much as I’m the captain, this is their team, and I know that. It’s exciting for me to hand it off to whoever and know it’s going to be in great hands.”
Said Dickinson: “I hope we’re creating a culture and a place they feel confident and comfortable to come into. We don’t want them to feel undervalued or feel less than any of us just because we’ve been here a while. This is, quite frankly, a team with open spots everywhere. Not one of us has a solid spot. So you have to come in and take your job and make it happen, because this team is looking for guys to do that. And it’s on them at this point, because they are the guys that are going to take this team forward.”
It’s encouraging that Frank Nazar, Artyom Levshunov, Oliver Moore, Sam Rinzel and others arrived with such innate confidence. Nazar, in particular, oozes the perfect combination of confidence and humility. He knows he “got better honestly every game” this season and wasn’t afraid to say so Thursday.
Orchestrating and navigating the continued transition from old to young will not be a simple, seamless process, though.
For all the optimism that was generated by the Hawks’ 4-1-1 stretch to close the season, that’s a very small sample. Next season, even if the Hawks are more competitive, they’re still very unlikely to be a playoff team. They’ll have to endure plenty more losing without letting it fracture the locker room.
Plus, for all the youngsters who debuted this season, the adrenaline rush of jumping into the NHL for the first time won’t be adding wind to their sails next season. More prospects will graduate into the league then and get that rush.
Long-term success will only be achieved by these kids learning how to prevail through the NHL’s year-after-year 82-game grind.
“We’re not going to discredit at all these last games, but teams that we were playing, you could see it on their faces in the game that they weren’t as tuned-in, knowing we were way out of the playoffs,” Murphy said. “The start of the season is a whole different animal. Everyone starts from a clean slate, and everyone is trying to put their best foot forward. It’ll definitely be a different ballgame for young guys coming in and proving themselves.
“With that being said, it’s really hard to do what they did: Coming in at the end of the season, not having time to integrate into the team and then being thrown to the wolves in a lot of big situations. For them to be able to go through rookie camp, training camp and exhibition games and [work on] systems with the coach to start the year, that’ll be really helpful for everyone. It’ll be really exciting to feel that energy they’ll still have and give.”
Dickinson echoed a similar sentiment with a slightly larger dose of skepticism — which is what three consecutive years finishing 30th or 31st in the league can do to someone.
“Do I feel like there is hope? Maybe,” Dickinson said. “But camp can roll around, and [for] all the guys that came in that played with a ton of adrenaline, maybe that kind of dissipates a little bit and we’re not moving as far forward as I might think. Just based on what I saw at the end of this season, you’d think that that will happen, but it’s not necessarily the truth.”
Even just-turned 24-year-old goalie Spencer Knight, who joked about going from one of the Panthers’ youngest players to “feeling old” in the Hawks’ locker room, is well aware next season won’t be “all sunshine and rainbows.”
“[The kids are] eager to become the players they want to be,” Knight said. “How fast [can] they get to that point? It could take three years; it may take eight.
“When you’re young in this league, it’s not easy. There’s a reason why the best teams in the league are a lot of players in their prime and significantly older. That’s just the way it is. No one’s going to hide it. But we’re going to grow through those tough mistakes. That happened this year, too.”
Davidson’s emphasis on drafting speedy skaters is now becoming evident at the NHL level, helping the Hawks potentially establish a long-awaited identity. Dickinson talked about that Thursday.
“Maybe [we’ll] become the team that’s just relentless on the forecheck, plays with a ton of pace and gets the [defensemen] jumping up in the rush,” he said.
That brand of hockey requires a lot of energy exertion on a nightly basis, however, and an inexperienced team playing that way will likely be prone to inconsistency.
During the Hawks’ meeting after a 5-0 loss April 8 in Pittsburgh, Foligno talked to the group about needing to “respect the game” more, believing that tenet hadn’t clicked for some young players right away. He saw them respecting it in Montreal a week later, but more tough love like that will be necessary from time to time.
At least everyone’s hearts seem to be in the right place and aligning with each other. That’s an important first step in any team-building process.
“You have to have that mix in the room: Guys who want to get better, who want to be a part of this, who care about their teammates,” Foligno said. “Those [young] guys, I give them a ton of credit. They came in and showed that from day one.”