Better luck next year: The Chicago Blackhawks need to start adding bigger pieces

The Chicago Blackhawks are three years into Connor Bedard's career and in some ways are just as bad as they were before he arrived. This should be a concern.

Welcome back to Better Luck Next Year, a series that will focus on each team as they get eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention and the Stanley Cup Playoffs. What went wrong, why it went wrong, what (if anything) went right, and what is next. We continue today with the next team to be eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention: The Chicago Blackhawks.

The current version of the Chicago Blackhawks remain a pretty good example of how long it can take to successfully rebuild an NHL team when it goes through a full-scale, tear-it-all-down-to-the-foundation rebuild. I am not necessarily saying it is the wrong approach (sometimes it is unavoidable) or that it can not work (because sometimes it can), but I am saying that even when the tank gets you the player you want and need, you are probably looking at years, and years, and years of bad hockey before it pays off.

If it pays off.

The Blackhawks are wrapping up year three of the Connor Bedard era, and after winning just 23 and 25 games in his first two years, they enter play on Monday having won just 28 of their first 77 games this season, with a pretty difficult schedule still remaining. Getting to 30 wins will be a challenge, especially given the way they have played in recent weeks. Keep in mind: They won 26 games the year in which they tanked to get Bedard.

Bedard, for his part, has mostly been fantastic and has taken a significant step forward offensively this season with 71 points in 64 games, setting career-highs across the board offensively despite missing more than 10 games. He is the driving force behind everything they do offensively and one of the few consistent bright spots on a nightly basis.

When he is on the ice during 5-on-5 play, they score 2.87 goals per 60 minutes.

When he is not on the ice, they only score 1.99 goals per 60 minutes.

The only player on the team with more than 16 goals this season is Tyler Bertuzzi with 32. Bedard has assisted on 14 of them.

It is an incredibly young team, with 14 players age 24 or younger playing in at least 15 games. That does not include teenagers Sacha Boisvert and Anton Frondell who recently made their NHL debuts. They only add to the youth that has filled this roster. Throwing a bunch of young players onto a roster together and telling them to go out and compete is asking a lot, and it is usually a big adjustment.

This is what the results typically look like.

The two big questions then become:

1. Does the constant losing take its toll and hurt development? Does losing breed losers?

2. Can enough of these young players develop into the type of players that can turn the into a contender, or at least be the foundation of a contender?

No matter how good your farm system and prospect pool looks on paper, no matter how many high draft picks or first-round picks you have, not all of them are going to develop exactly as you hope. The best-case scenario does not happen for every prospect. Some of these guys might excel. Some of them will fail. Some of them will get hurt that sidetracks their development. Some of them just will simply not be as good as you hope. Even if enough of them do pan out, simply waiting for all of them to reach their ceiling and all become good at the same time can take years, while running the risk of turning you into the Detroit Red Wings.

Most teams that come through a rebuild successfully have a mix of home-grown stars and outside additions that complement them, speed up the process and bring the whole thing together.

The latter area is what the Blackhawks need to start focussing on. Rapidly.

Let’s talk about it.

What went right this season