Heard from a regular and highly reliable source last night that the Blackhawks staff are none too pleased with the results in Wednesday night's 5-2 loss to the Blues.
"This is a 10-game audition. If things haven't improved, there will be big changes. This team is not in rebuild mode."
What that means, as contradictory as it may sound, is that the Blackhawks at present are built to be a perennial Cup contender. The iron of their infrastructure are big salary commitments to a number of quality veterans.
Unfortunately, those commitments have been made in the belief that the salary cap would continue to rise at a certain rate. When it hasn't in recent years, it's put the Hawks in a bind—not enough room left to fill out a championship-quality roster.
So, in essence, the Hawks are caught between two "models": a youth movement, with a lineup sporting as many as 6 rookies, many of whom are 20-21 year old former lower round draft picks, or a highly tuned, deep veteran club poised to go deep into the early summer.
A lot of Hawk fans and the Hawks themselves want to believe that a "fusion" of the two can deliver the latter results.
That is what is being put to the test for the next 9 games or so. Can it work?
Understand, a poor start this year, when the Hawks have a favorable schedule with more home games, can easily mean missing the playoffs in the highly competitive Central Division and Western Conference.
On numerous levels, missing the playoffs is not acceptable for this organization.
So if, after ten games, the "fusion" model is not working, the Hawks, I'm told, are prepared to make a bigger move that would likely mean dealing a bigger veteran contract (or possibly more than one) to more meaningfully retool on the fly.
Skeptics will say that those deals aren't out there. But one thing I have observed about Stan Bowman and the Hawk front office the last few years is that they have deals cooking all the time, lots of "Plan B" moves if needed.
Because no one should assume that Wednesday night's discouraging season opener is a one-game microcosm. The Hawks as a team didn't exactly tear it up in the preseason either.
Yes, it's still very early, extremely early, in the regular season, but it's not as though the Hawks didn't learn a lot of about the players they have in the preseason and in previous seasons.
So, even though it's extremely early, in yesterday's practice, Joel Quenneville and staff set the line blender to 11:
Panarin Toews Panik Motte Anisimov Kane Rasmussen Kruger Hartman Hinostroza Schmaltz Tootoo
Marian Hossa was taking a rest day. According to Q, he's "fine."
So inserting Hossa back in, there could be a fairly significant ripple effect, something like:
Panarin Toews Hossa Panik Anisimov Kane Motte Kruger Hartman Hinostroza Rasmussen (Schmaltz) Tootoo
The defense should be:
Keith-Hjalmarsson Kempny-Seabrook Forsling-Campbell
Yes, Trevor van Riemsdyk is likely out, and, I'm told, is again on the trading block.
Tonight's game in Nashville (8PM Eastern, NBCSN, TVA) will be another tough, Central Division test against an improved team that has a serious desire to overtake the Chicago Blackhawks.
I'll recap tomorrow.