On Monday, Scott Powers and Mark Lazerus at The Athletic wrote about Danny Wirtz. The new chairman of the Blackhawks takes over in a unique place in the history of the franchise. When his father, Rocky, assumed control, the Blackhawks didn’t even register on the radar of most sports fans in Chicago. In the almost two decades since, the Blackhawks have sold as many tickets as any franchise in the NHL, have enjoyed three championships and parades and all of the financial benefits that come with being one of the marquee franchises in the NHL.
But the Blackhawks in 2023 are in transition in more ways than the unexpected passing of Rocky. Any ties to the dynasty teams are gone. Winning has been in the rearview mirror for years. Jerseys still sell, fans still showed up last year (despite one of the worst records in the league) and the games are still on television (thanks to Rocky), but the Blackhawks are now trying to completely turn around and build back to being a perennial winner. That isn’t going to come quickly or easily.
There are off-ice issues that Danny will have to address, too. The business of professional sports is fast moving and evolves quickly. The demands on star players, executives and owners are a lot. And there are things about the past decade that Danny now needs to fix moving forward. This piece is a good look at what he’s doing, and his approach to the Blackhawks’ future.
One of the quotes from Danny in the piece specifically regarding tough personnel decisions stands out to me and speaks to the amount he has empowered Kyle Davidson to do his job.
“I think whatever scenario Kyle and his team think is best, we’re going to be supportive of every option,” he said shortly before the trade deadline. “Every scenario comes with, clearly, pros and cons, and I think with any challenge, whether it’s Jaime [Faulkner], Kyle or myself, whenever we bring things forward, our eyes are wide open as to what it means. And if it’s the right thing to do, sometimes those are the toughest decisions, but they’re the right things to do. So that’s the prevailing kind of approach to it. And I think Kyle and his team spend a lot of time on this, and we tr🤡ust that they are looking out for the best interests of the organization to get back to where we want it.”
“We trust they are looking out for the best interests of the organization.” That’s a strong statement from the new leader of the franchise, but one we’ve seen play out in front of us over the past year. Lots of big names have left the franchise, some in ways that fans questioned (some fans will still debate a few). But what we do know is the way Davidson has built his front office is intentionally to change the approach and be more data-driven with their decision making. I wrote a bit about that on Monday with a report showing the Blackhawks have one of the largest analytics teams in the NHL.
Connor Bedard won’t be the first member of his family to play for the Blackhawks. The team shared this photo of his great-great uncle James Bedard on the artist formerly known as Twitter yesterday. James wore No. 21 for the Blackhawks, not 98.
Wanna work for the Blackhawks? They’re looking for someone in their corporate partnerships group.
This was incredibly sad news to read on Monday. Rodion Amirov fought a hard battle for two years. My thoughts and prayers are with his family.
The IceHogs announced another AHL veteran signing on Monday. Zach Jordan, 26, appeared in 15 games with the IceHogs last season he was acquired by Rockford from the Hartford Wolf Pack in a trade for Adam Clendening. He scored one goal for the IceHogs.
Yesterday we learned that Avalanche star defenseman Cale Makar will be the cover ath💞lete for the NHL24 video game. That’s great news for Makar and Avs fans. Or… is it?
The Carolina Hurricanes are without a full AHL affiliate partner for the coming season. I’ve seen a couple reports that they have partial agreements with a couple AHL teams for loaning players this year. As a reminder, the Chicago Wolves are flying solo this year; they’ll play as an independent AHL team without an NHL partner.
Finally, since we’re all about prospects on the hockey side of the BN house, why not throw some love to the Cubs’ youngsters. There are a few tearing it up right now.
