Chicago Blackhawks
A better roster, waiting on its captain
Chicago spent the summer adding Bowen Byram, Patrick Kane and two rookies who start in the top six. Then Connor Bedard hurt his shoulder in July. Our model sees a team that is still near the bottom of the league, priced about where it should be, with a goalie who keeps it closer than the lineup suggests.
The bettor's bottom line
- Better, but not good yet. D rating, 28th in the league, about 82 points over 84 games. The sportsbooks sit at 80.5. We are a hair above the price and see no reason to fight it.
- Two seasons in one. The October team plays without Bedard. The team after his return, likely in November or December, is a different price. Watch the timeline, not the standings.
- Knight is the floor. Spencer Knight grades B+ and was the main reason Chicago stayed in games last season. The backup grades E+, so the nightly starter matters.
- Expect tight, low-scoring games. Blackhawks games ran below the league average in goals, and Jeff Blashill's teams do not open things up. Our scoring ratings put Chicago among the quietest matchups in the league.
- Fair regulation price against a league-average opponent: at home 36.2% win / 23.4% draw / 40.5% loss (2.76 / 4.28 / 2.47). On the road 28.9% win / 23.1% draw / 48.0% loss (3.46 / 4.32 / 2.08).
On July 2, nine days after trading the fourth overall pick for Bowen Byram, the Blackhawks lost their franchise player. Connor Bedard hurt his left shoulder at a summer practice in Vancouver and had surgery six days later. He was named captain anyway, and the club says he should be back around November. Chicago opens in Las Vegas on Tuesday without him.
The arc of the rebuild is finally pointing up: 52 points, then 61, then 72 last season. The summer was the first in years spent adding instead of selling. Byram arrived to run the power play, Patrick Kane came home at 37, Ian Cole came in for the blue line, and two rookies, Anton Frondell and Roman Kantserov, won top-six jobs in camp. So the question for bettors is simple. Is this the year the Blackhawks climb out of the bottom five?
Our answer is not yet. Chicago was the worst team in the league on chances last season, worse than its standings finish. The additions are real, and a young team tends to improve on its own. But the lineup still ranks in the league's bottom third, the best player is out for the first month or two, and the one thing that kept games close, the goaltending, is the hardest thing in hockey to repeat.
That makes us a little cooler than the most hopeful previews. Daily Faceoff expects Chicago to finish much closer to 20th than 32nd, and some local writers see a path to the second wild card. The market is more careful: VSiN lists the total at 79.5 and leans under because of the Bedard absence. We sit with the books. Most previews also ask whether Kane can still produce and whether Byram is worth his new contract. Our numbers say yes to both: Byram grades as a genuine top-pair defenseman once his power-play work is counted.
1What last season really was
Chicago's record was bad. The way it played was worse, and the goalie hid some of it.
| Measure | CHI | NHL rank | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standings points | 72 | 31st | 8th in the Central |
| Goals for / against | 210 / 270 | -60 goal differential | |
| Expected-goals share, all situations (MoneyPuck) | 44.1% | 32nd | Out-chanced by more than anyone |
| Expected-goals share, our shot-type recalibration | 45.1% | 31st | Slightly better, still bottom two |
| Score-adjusted shot-attempt share | 45.8% | 30th | Hemmed in most nights |
| Finishing, goals above expected | -9.2 | 21st | Bedard and Bertuzzi, then little else |
| Goaltending, goals saved above expected (GSAx) | +7.5 | 15th | +5.2 in the first half, +2.3 in the second |
This was the weakest team in the league at creating and preventing chances, and the standings were kind to it. The reason is in the crease. After four straight seasons of goaltending below expected, Chicago finally got above-average work in net, and that alone was worth a few standings points. Finishing went the other way: the team scored below expected, even with 30 goals from Bedard and 32 from Tyler Bertuzzi.
The second half was a little worse than the first, 33 points against 39, and the goaltending edge shrank as the season went on. Nothing in last season's numbers says this team was better than its record. The case for improvement has to come from the roster and from age.
2How the model builds Chicago's ranking
Our preseason rating starts from how well a team actually played last season, with luck stripped out, and then adds only what has historically carried over from one season to the next.
The starting point is near the very bottom. Measured on chances rather than results, Chicago was one of the two or three weakest teams in the league last season, below its 31st-place standings finish.
Youth is the biggest push upward. Only two teams in the league have a younger lineup. Nazar and Levshunov are 22 and 20, Frondell is 19, Rinzel 22. Across 18 years of data, the youngest teams improve the following season and the oldest decline.
The roster moves help. Byram, Kane, Cole and a KHL scorer in Kantserov make the lineup clearly better than the one that finished last season, even after losing Ilya Mikheyev and Andre Burakovsky.
Bedard's absence and the shooting pull it back. Missing the best forward for the first month or two costs real points. And Chicago's shooters have mostly finished below expected over the last three seasons, so the model does not expect a sudden jump in scoring.
Summer moves: in and out
| Player | Pos | Role | From | 2025-26 | Grade | Impact |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ian Cole | D | Shutdown / PK | Utah | 82 GP · 3 G · 23 P | B+ | Upgrade. A 37-year-old defensive defenseman who played all 82 games in Utah and kills penalties. Steadies the young third pair. |
| Bowen Byram | D | Two-way top pair | Buffalo | 82 GP · 11 G · 42 P | B+ | Upgrade. A 25-year-old who plays top-pair minutes and runs the first power-play unit. Cost the fourth overall pick, then signed a six-year extension at $12.5 million a year. |
| Patrick Kane | RW | Playmaker | Detroit | 67 GP · 16 G · 57 P | C+ | Upgrade. Still a first-unit playmaker at 37, with 57 points in Detroit. Starts on the top line with Nazar and Kantserov. |
| Cole Smith | LW | Net-front depth | Vegas | 63 GP · 8 G · 12 P | C+ | Small. A heavy fourth-liner and penalty killer on a three-year deal. |
| Jordan Greenway | LW | Defensive C / PK | Buffalo | 40 GP · 1 G · 6 P | C+ | Small. Came with Byram from Buffalo. A big defensive winger fighting for a fourth-line job. |
| Roman Kantserov | RW | Sniper | KHL, Magnitogorsk | No NHL games last season | C+ | The wild card. A KHL goal scorer in his first NHL season, on the top line from day one. His grade is an estimate from KHL numbers, so the range is wide. |
| Player | Pos | Role | To | 2025-26 | Grade | Impact |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Louis Crevier | D | Physical depth | Buffalo | 77 GP · 7 G · 25 P | D- | None. A big depth defenseman, part of the Byram trade. |
| Ilya Mikheyev | RW | Net-front depth | Tampa Bay | 76 GP · 18 G · 36 P | B+ | Real loss. 18 goals and one of the better two-way wingers on the team. Signed with Tampa Bay. |
| Andre Burakovsky | LW | Middle-six all-rounder | Ottawa | 74 GP · 11 G · 33 P | C | Small. A middle-six winger on a large contract. Traded for a sixth-round pick. |
| Matt Grzelcyk | D | Sheltered puck mover | Buffalo | 68 GP · 0 G · 12 P | D- | None. A sheltered puck mover with no goals last season. Signed late with Buffalo. |
| Sam Lafferty | C | Middle-six all-rounder | Florida | 29 GP · 1 G · 2 P | E-- | None. Depth forward, two points in 29 games. |
Net: a better and more balanced lineup than the one that finished last season, with a real top-pair defenseman and a veteran playmaker added. Mikheyev is the one loss that stings. The catch is timing: the best forward on the roster is not in it yet.
Two late arrivals from last season also count more this time. Frondell, the third overall pick in 2025, played only 12 games at the end of the year and now centers the second line. Andrew Mangiapane came over from Edmonton in March and played 10 games. A full season of both adds depth that last season's totals never saw.
Goalies and coach barely move it. Knight and Arvid Soderblom return as the same tandem, so there is nothing to adjust in net. Jeff Blashill starts his second season behind the bench. His teams have measured close to average once the rosters are accounted for.
The result is a D team, 28th in the league, projected for about 82 points over the new 84-game schedule. Chicago sits just behind San Jose and ahead of Nashville and Seattle, with Calgary and Vancouver further below. That is within two points of the sportsbooks. Improvement from 72 points is in the number already; a jump into the playoff race is not.
3The projected lineup
Our projected opening-night lineup. Each player shows his 2026-27 grade (A to E, with a 0-100 score: his percentile among NHL regulars at his position), his role and last season's numbers. Goalies are graded the same way against the league's 64 starters and backups.
Reading the lineup
A top line built on hope. Blashill kept Kantserov, Frank Nazar and Kane together through all of camp, and it was the only line that created chances consistently in the preseason. Nazar grades C and Kane C+. It is a skilled line with no proven top-line center, and it will be asked to carry the offense until Bedard returns.
Bertuzzi is the best forward on the ice. He scored 32 goals last season and grades B, the highest of any healthy forward. He plays on the second line with Frondell, a 19-year-old center, and Nick Lardis. When Bedard is back, the top two lines get a lot deeper overnight.
The bottom six is thin on scoring. Ryan Donato, Oliver Moore, Mangiapane, Ryan Greene and Cole Smith all grade between C+ and C-. Teuvo Teravainen, coming off the worst year of his career, starts the season as a healthy scratch, a sign of how much the coach wants to see from the veterans.
The blue line is younger and better. Alex Vlasic grades C+ and pairs with Byram (B+) on the top pair. Cole grades B+ at 37, level with Byram for the best grade on the blue line. The risk is the middle: Artyom Levshunov, 20, grades D and plays second-pair minutes. His growth is the swing on this defense.
4Who matters most
Every fan knows Chicago's price starts with Bedard, and it does once he is back. Until then, the players who move the nightly price most are the ones who play the most minutes: Vlasic and Byram on defense, and Knight in goal. Defensemen who play big minutes matter more than their profile suggests, because their minutes go to someone worse, and on this roster the next man up is a 20- or 22-year-old.
Up front, Bertuzzi matters more than Kane. He is the most complete healthy forward and the one who scores at even strength.
5Goaltending: the reason the games were close
For four seasons Chicago's goalies gave up more than they should have. Then Knight arrived from Florida in a March 2025 trade, and the team finished above expected for the first time in five years. He did it behind a defense that allowed the third-most shot attempts in the league.
| Goalie | Oct | Nov | Dec | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | Season |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arvid Soderblom | -0.2 (3) | -4.1 (5) | -1.1 (5) | -0.0 (4) | +2.6 (6) | -1.2 (3) | -4.0 | |
| Spencer Knight | +4.5 (8) | +5.8 (9) | -2.4 (10) | +3.5 (10) | -1.1 (4) | +4.7 (8) | -4.0 (5) | +11.0 |
Knight was above expected in four of seven months, with a strong November and March. The dips came in December and in a rough April. Our projection grades him B+, among the better starters in the league, and ranks Chicago's goaltending 11th as a group. That is warmer than Daily Faceoff, which leaves Chicago out of the top half of its tandem rankings. The obvious question is whether he can repeat it. Our projection already expects some pullback and still likes him.
The backup is the concern. Soderblom grades E+ after a season below expected, and he faced more dangerous chances per minute than almost any goalie in the league. Drew Commesso went to Rockford without playing a preseason game. With 12 back-to-back sets on the schedule, expect Soderblom in 20 to 25 games. Confirm the starter before you bet.
6Chicago's system: how they score and defend
Blashill's teams play a quiet game. In Detroit and in his first year in Chicago, they took fewer shots than most teams, threw few hits and kept the pace low. Last season the Blackhawks were strong in one area, the rush, where they allowed fewer chances than all but one team. Everywhere else they were pinned in their own zone.
| Measure | Value | Reading |
|---|---|---|
| Archetype | Low-event structure | Low-event structure (with Detroit and Chicago) |
| Own shot attempts per 60 | -1.3 SD | Fewer shots than average |
| Shot attempts against per 60 | +0.4 SD | Slightly more shots against |
| Blocked shots per 60 | -0.4 SD | Slightly fewer blocks than average |
| Hits per 60 | -1.0 SD | Few hits |
| Coach value beyond the roster | About average | Measured with rebuilding rosters in Detroit and Chicago; no measurable boost or drag |
| Measure | CHI | League avg | Rank of 32 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Offense | |||
| Goals (non-empty net) | 201 | 238 | 2nd fewest |
| Shot attempts | 3,110 | 3,470 | 4th fewest |
| Attempts from settled play (not rebound, rush or quick pass) | 85.9% | 85.4% | 8th highest |
| Attempts off the rush | 3.1% | 2.7% | 4th highest |
| Goals off rebounds | 10.4% | 13.1% | 6th lowest |
| Goals from inside 20 feet | 60.2% | 54.1% | 4th highest |
| Goals on the power play | 20.4% | 23.1% | 10th lowest |
| Defense | |||
| Goals allowed (non-empty net) | 255 | 238 | 5th most |
| Opponent shot attempts | 3,707 | 3,470 | 3rd most |
| Share of opponent attempts from inside 20 feet | 35.2% | 31.6% | 3rd highest |
| Rebound attempts allowed | 8.9% | 8.1% | 4th highest |
| Goals allowed off rebounds | 13.3% | 13.1% | 12th highest |
| Goals allowed while shorthanded | 17.6% | 23.1% | 2nd lowest |
Offense: few shots, from the wrong places. Chicago took fewer shot attempts than all but three teams and fewer of them from the slot than anyone but one. It leaned on the rush more than most. When it did get to the slot, it scored, which is why Kane and Kantserov, both players who find the middle of the ice, fit the need.
Defense: good against the rush, beaten in the zone. Opponents had the third-most shot attempts against Chicago and got more of them from the slot than against almost any team. Byram, Cole and a full year of Vlasic should help with the zone time more than any system change.
What it means for scoring. Blackhawks games averaged 5.85 total goals last season: 2.56 for and 3.29 against per game, against a league average of 3.08 per team (6.16 per game). Our team scoring ratings carry that into 2026-27: the weakest offense in the league, a bottom-five defense and one of the lowest event levels, which makes Chicago one of the lower-scoring matchups on the schedule until Bedard returns.
7Special teams
| Unit | Goals | Rank | Expected goals | Rank | Minutes / game |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Power play (for) | 5.69 | 29th | 6.81 | 26th | 4.5 |
| Penalty kill (against) | 5.75 | 2nd | 7.43 | 18th | 4.6 |
The two units went in opposite directions last season. The power play was one of the league's worst, both in goals and in the chances it created. The penalty kill allowed fewer goals than all but one team, but its chances against were middle of the pack, and that gap is mostly Spencer Knight.
| Player | Unit | Job | 2025-26 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tyler Bertuzzi | PP1 | Net-front finisher | 19 PP points; 11 PP goals |
| Patrick Kane | PP1 | The playmaker | 15 PP points with Detroit |
| Bowen Byram | PP1 | New point man | 7 PP points with Buffalo |
| Anton Frondell | PP1 | Rookie shooter | 12 games; 1 PP points |
| Roman Kantserov | PP1 | Rookie, one-timer threat | Did not play in the NHL last season |
| Artyom Levshunov | PP2 | Second-unit quarterback | 11 PP points |
| Ian Cole | PK1 | Veteran shot blocker | 2:50 shorthanded per game, 12th most in the NHL with Utah |
| Alex Vlasic | PK1 | Top killer on defense | 2:43 shorthanded per game, 17th most in the NHL |
| Cole Smith | PK1 | Forward pressure | 1:54 shorthanded per game with Vegas |
| Oliver Moore | PK1 | Speed up front | 0:17 shorthanded per game |
| Wyatt Kaiser | PK2 | Second-pair killer | 1:50 shorthanded per game |
How the power play works. It was rebuilt this summer. Kane arrives from Detroit to run the flank, and Byram comes from Buffalo to quarterback from the point, two jobs Chicago struggled to fill last season. Bertuzzi, with 11 power-play goals, stays in front of the net. Around them sit two rookies, Frondell and Kantserov, which makes the top unit a mix of proven setup men and untested shooters.
Bedard's return changes it. Connor Bedard is out after shoulder surgery and expected back around November. When he returns, he takes a top-unit spot and the one-timer the group lacks, and one of the rookies drops to the second unit. Until then, Kane's passing and Byram's point play have to carry it.
How the penalty kill works. Vlasic and Cole carry it. Both played close to three shorthanded minutes a night last season, among the most in the league, and Cole brings that workload from Utah. Up front, Smith and the young Moore pressure the puck. The results were far better than the chances allowed, which is what an excellent goalie does to a penalty kill.
What to watch. Expect the power play to improve simply because it can hardly get worse, and expect the penalty kill to drift back toward average unless Knight repeats last season. For a team that will often be the underdog, special teams are where it can steal a game.
8What would change our view
- Bedard's returnThe single biggest swing. A return in early November lifts the rating for the rest of the season; a setback into the new year keeps Chicago near the bottom.
- Knight's first monthIf he holds last season's level, Chicago steals games it should not. If he regresses, there is little behind him.
- The top lineKantserov and Kane in the slot is the plan. If they create chances at even strength, the offense stops being last in the league.
- LevshunovA step forward from the 20-year-old turns the second pair from a weakness into a strength.
- Shots againstIf the zone time comes down toward average by November, the new defensemen are working and the rating climbs.
- Early-season formThe first 20 to 30 games say less than they seem. Hot and cold starts mostly reflect shooting and goaltending swings.