CHICAGO — When the Chicago Blackhawks take the ice Thursday at Fifth Third Arena to begin training camp, they’ll kick off a new era.
It’s their first camp under fresh leadership in general manager Kyle Davidson and coach Luke Richardson.
“It’s nice to get around and talk to (the players) while they’re doing their medicals and fitness testing, get to know them a little bit, try to get to know some of the faces,” Richardson said Wednesday. “But on the ice is where it’s important and that’s where we’re building the relationships as coaches and players, trying to get that first block in place so we can really start building the team.”
Richardson, who was hired in late June, acknowledged “there will be lots of things I learn along the way and making sure I’m open to learning and having new ideas and growing as a coach.”
The Hawks surely are in for some growing pains.
Gone are core players such as Alex DeBrincat and Kirby Dach. Fans will get a crash course in Max Domi and Lukas Reichel.
It portends a long road back to respectability — a years-long rebuilding process — and Thursday represents Day 1 of the roster-building moving from concept to reality.
“We’re going to have some good roster battles to track, and having those competitive roster battles is good for the culture of any team,” Davidson said.
Here are three things we learned from Richardson and Davidson on Wednesday.
1. Trade rumors? What trade rumors?
It seems like the hockey world’s favorite pastime this summer was hatching every conceivable trade scenario that would ship Patrick Kane to the Edmonton Oilers, Toronto Maple Leafs, New York Rangers or any team that considers itself a Stanley Cup contender.
The fact that Kane, who has a no-movement clause, could veto any of those scenarios if he chose to stay in Chicago seems almost an afterthought.
And Jonathan Toews hasn’t been shy about hinting that he might want to move on.
But to hear Davidson tell it, all has been quiet on the Kane and Toews front.
“Yeah, there haven’t been any conversations (with Kane and Toews),” Davidson said. “We’re focused on training camp and getting into the season. As far as any player movement ... we’re not anywhere near that point.
“We’re focused on Jonathan and Patrick being here and being part of the team and competing right from the opening day.”
In fact, Davidson doubled down.
“We didn’t have any intentions on making any of those moves, and they didn’t have any intentions on going anywhere,” he said. “We were both mutually focused on the season. So if it comes to that at some point, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there, but we’re certainly not there right now.”
We now pause for incredulous silence. Perhaps the only difference in Davidson’s “intentions” with DeBrincat, Dach and Brandon Hagel is that none of them had a no-movement clause like Kane and Toews do.
But we all get it. The subject of trading a pair of three-time Stanley Cup champions is a potential powder keg for Davidson, but it strains the bounds of belief that the team hasn’t had ongoing back-channel discussions with all parties involved.
Given the magnitude of what Kane and Toews still mean to the franchise — as players, locker-room leaders or potential draft assets — it would be irresponsible not to have had those talks.
And in past interviews, Davidson has talked freely about keeping Kane and Toews in the loop, even when the conversations delve into “tough decisions.”
Fine, Davidson doesn’t want to take the bait for now. We’ll see the proof by the trade deadline.
2. Kane and Toews are staying for now, but are they buying in?
Kane and Toews are scheduled to address the media Thursday, so they’ll have an opportunity to answer that question for themselves.
But Richardson made it clear Wednesday he wants to build a relationship with them and lean on them for leadership.
“I’ve talked to them probably the most and they seem great,” Richardson said. “I know they probably have some questions and some wonder, and that’s all of us, right?”
Speaking of the veterans in general and Kane and Toews in particular, Richardson said they seem like they’re on the same page as the organization and “want to be a part of this right now, at the start anyway.”
“That’s all we can ask from the players,” Richardson said. “They look like they’ve come in and (are) prepared and are ready and have smiles on their faces. They’re not walking around grumpy and unhappy, but they’re competitive. You can understand they want to be competitive and win, and that’s what we want.
“So we express that we understand that. … We want the young players to learn off them and learn how to be competitive and win in this league.”
It probably doesn’t hurt the Hawks’ cause that Kane already seems to have formed a bond with free-agent forward Domi.
Richardson wants to test that relationship on the ice.
“We’re going to move things around,” he said. “But tomorrow, just for Day 1, we want to see maybe some Domi speed with Kane on the same line. I think that’ll be good.
“They’ve got a connection because they both played for the same junior organization (the OHL London Knights). So (we’ll) see if something comes (of) that.”
3. How will the Hawks measure success?
There’s no getting around it: As much as coaches and front-office people will parrot the company line about trying to win every time you hit the ice, it would be folly for a rebuilding team to jeopardize a shot at the generational talent at the top of next year’s draft — namely Connor Bedard.
But let’s be practical: Neither Richardson nor Davidson can say that, so they thread the needle.
Davidson said what you would expect him to say: “You don’t get into this industry if you don’t want to win every night. But from my perspective in the more macro view of things, we are having a more long-term view of this at times, and given the current trajectory of the franchise, we are thinking long-term in many respects.
“But that doesn’t change the fact that when you walk into the rink, you walk into the United Center, you want the Blackhawks to win.”
For Richardson, the mark of success will be building a team.
“And that’s kind of a vague statement,” he said, “but a team is something that maybe you guys will see on the ice — the results.”
Richardson said he wants to chart players’ progress and keep positive results going — a goal that can be independent of wins and losses.
“Just giving them a bit of a bar graph to visualize, like how we want to be and what you want to be as an athlete,” he said. “You want to keep the highs really rolling high and longer. And then when it spikes down low, we want it to spike right back up, get it right back up on the up train, not hit down low and stay there for a while.
“Success for this team might be a different meaning for us and fans and you guys (in the media), but as long as it’s trickling upward, an upward trend, and the downward trends are really nipped in the bud early and turned around quickly, I think those are the signs of a team growing.”
