Blackhawks are no closer to contention than before

The 2026-27 NHL season is well into its second month, and it’s clear that no team is off to a more disastrous start than the Chicago Blackhawks.

Based on their offseason moves and posturing, the Blackhawks were ready to try to go from perennial rebuilder to playoff caliber team this season. General manager Kyle Davidson spent big, in terms of both trade assets and cap space, to land Bowen Byram to be his new franchise defenseman.

Now, with new captain Connor Bedard carrying a $15 million cap hit after the team achieved nothing while he was on his entry-level deal, the Blackhawks are one of just two teams that has yet to reach 10 points in the standings, joining the Vancouver Canucks.

On Thursday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discussed the sad state of affairs with the Blackhawks as we hit the second full month of Bedard’s fourth season in the league.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Before we get to the Stanley Cup contender side of the spectrum, man we’re going to start on whatever the other side of the spectrum is because a couple of teams last night in the NHL suffering some pretty disappointing losses… They’ve been pretty common for both San Jose and Chicago this year. The Blackhawks fall to 31st in the NHL after their loss to the Florida Panthers last night on national TV in the States… This is a team that’s cracked 80 points once in the last 10 seasons… This team is no closer to being competitive than they were five years ago when the rebuild started, and man, doesn’t that ring true if you’re a Blackhawks fan? They’re 31st in the league, Hutts, they feel like they’re a step away from taking the step away that everyone was hoping that they’d take a year or two ago.

Carter Hutton: Yeah, I think that’s the problem here, is like you start to bank years, and you kind of get this window of grace period where you’re bringing in younger players to make that step forward, and there have been some good takeaways too, there’s a lot of things to build off with some of their guys… Last night you fall behind 3-0 early. I think that’s the pressure to be better in those situations, but even last night, for me Frank Nazar scores two against Florida. Connor Bedard a couple assists. Roman Kantserov, he scored his team-leading seventh, so there’s bright spots, but then you start to look management-wise of like, depth and players and where you bring in guys to help a little bit, because that’s a factor. I think with Spencer Knight you have a legit No. 1 guy who can get there; I think right now it’s just the support system and that cast around you.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode below…