The Blackhawks are going to talk a lot about competing for the playoffs this season.
Defenseman Alex Vlasic has led the way with that rhetoric, hoping to speak it into existence, but he won’t be alone once his teammates start doing regular interviews during training camp, which starts Sept. 17.
What would it take for the Hawks to make the playoffs? It certainly sounds unlikely, given how far outside the field the Hawks have been recently. They missed by 18 points last season, by 35 the season before and by a whopping 46 the season before that.
The influx of talented youth in the last couple of years, forward Patrick Kane’s return and defenseman Bowen Byram’s arrival this summer make this clearly the best Hawks roster under general manager Kyle Davidson. But that’s not saying much. Jumping over so many competitors to get into the postseason will be no easy feat.
Unsurprisingly, the analytics models and betting lines are skeptical. The Hawks’ playoff odds are +400 on FanDuel, for example, which equates to a 20% implied probability — the third-lowest odds in the Western Conference.
The Hawks’ internal target needs to be fourth place in the intimidating Central Division, which likely would earn them a wild-card spot, given how weak the Pacific Division is. Even fifth in the Central might be enough, but fourth is a safer target.
And if you don multiple pairs of rose-tinted glasses and squint, fourth in the Central seems somewhat within the realm of possibility.
Third? Not so much. The Avalanche, Wild and Stars were by far the best teams in the division and in the conference last season, and they’re expected to remain the class of the division (at least) again this season.
Off the ice, the Wild and Stars have the looming 2027 free agencies of Quinn Hughes and Jason Robertson to worry about, but their rosters are elite for now. The Avalanche, meanwhile, changed little this summer after their 121-point season.
The rest of the division appears to be less superhuman. The Mammoth, Predators, Blues and Jets have flaws. They’re all projected to finish above the Hawks, of course, but it’s not inconceivable the Hawks could leapfrog them if a number of things break right.
For reference, here are DraftKings’ current point-total over/under lines for each Central team: Avalanche, 107.5; Wild, 101.5; Stars, 100.5; Mammoth, 96.5; Predators, 85.5; Blues, 84.5; Jets, 84.5; Hawks 79.5.
Looking around
Center Connor Bedard most often gets compared to peers such as Macklin Celebrini and Leo Carlsson for obvious reasons, but he’s friends with Celebrini and respectful with Carlsson.
It’s actually young Mammoth star Logan Cooley with whom Bedard seems perhaps most eager to create a rivalry. He had great success on that front last season, as the Hawks swept the four-game season series from the Mammoth.
‘‘Every game we play [against] these guys is pretty intense and pretty good hockey, so it feels great to beat them every time,’’ Bedard said in March. ‘‘We don’t like them; they don’t like us. So it’s a good feeling.’’
Cooley, Dylan Guenther and Clayton Keller form a dangerous three-headed monster atop the Mammoth’s forward corps, which was bolstered this summer by veterans Vincent Trocheck and Anders Lee. A top-tier prospect pool lies beneath the Mammoth’s solid NHL roster, so the future is undeniably bright in Salt Lake City.
For the Hawks to surpass them this season — and keep pace in the long term — they’ll need to keep channeling that emotional fire. Talent matters, but so does willpower. They probably also will need goalie Spencer Knight to outperform Mammoth veteran Karel Vejmelka and pan out better than Mammoth goalie prospects Sebastian Cossa and Michael Hrabal.
Speaking of Central goalies, Connor Hellebuyck’s decision to go public with his trade request out of Winnipeg throws the Jets into crisis mode because they would be obvious pretenders without him.
It’s no coincidence the Jets won the Presidents’ Trophy in 2024-25, when Hellebuyck posted a .925 save percentage, then fell out of the playoffs entirely in 2025-26, when he posted an .895 save percentage.
Yes, Kyle Connor and Josh Morrissey are great players, but it’s never good when a franchise that can’t attract free-agent talent also has one of the worst prospect pools.
Even if the Jets keep Hellebuyck, who still has five years left under contract, the Hawks have much better center depth and conceivably could find a way to score their way past them. If the Jets trade Hellebuyck, the Hawks might move above them even in the preseason betting lines.
That leaves the Predators and Blues, who finished last season tied with 86 points. Given the Predators’ Juuse Saros has declined for three consecutive seasons and the Blues’ Jordan Binnington is coming off a disastrous season, neither goalie situation is airtight, either.
Both franchises’ new GMs, Chris MacFarland (Predators) and Alexander Steen (Blues), spent their summers moving around lots of forward deck chairs.
In Nashville, Mavrik Bourque, Ross Colton, Jack Drury and others replace Luke Evangelista, Erik Haula and Fedor Svechkov. In St. Louis, Mason McTavish and Connor McMichael replace Jordan Kryou and Jonathan Drouin.
On the whole, the Predators’ extremely old roster looks worse than the Blues’ decent collection of young and prime-aged talent.
In the long term, one Hawks concern might be that their prospect pool is only marginally better than the Predators’ and Blues’ pools, which are strong. This season, the Hawks’ best chance of surpassing their Midwestern neighbors might depend on their defense.
The Predators rely heavily on two defensemen in their mid-30s (Roman Josi and Brady Skjei). The Blues, aside from Philip Broberg, do nearly the same with Colton Parayko and Cam Fowler. If Artyom Levshunov and Sam Rinzel break out and Byram emerges as the No. 1 defenseman the Hawks are paying him to be, the scales might tip favorably.
Wait and see
The Hawks themselves, it’s worth noting, won’t pay much attention to these opponent-by-opponent matchups until the specific games arrive on their schedule.
They’re at the stage of rebuilding where they must focus on bettering themselves and let the standings fall where they may.
Looking down from above, however, the Hawks’ loftier ambitions this season require a little more focus on their division rivals. If things go well, this might be the first season in some time in which the NHL standings actually matter to them for more than determining draft position.
The Hawks will face the Mammoth in their second game, the Blues in their fourth (their home opener) and the Jets in their eighth, providing some early referendums — albeit without Bedard in the lineup.
Then they’ll finish the season facing the Predators three times in their last eight games, a weird scheduling quirk. By then, it should be clear whether Vlasic and his cohorts’ proclamations about the playoffs were prescient or foolish.