It can be easy to forget that the Chicago Blackhawks have been here before and done this before.

Go back two decades, and this Original Six franchise had found itself mired in years of futility.

In a span of 10 seasons, they won exactly one Stanley Cup Playoff game. The other nine years they simply failed to qualify for the postseason at all. Head coach after head coach had come and gone. Rebuilding plans once put into place later found themselves scrapped.

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So the Blackhawks finally opted to take the long-term approach, the one that came with no guarantees, required considerable patience, and would not deliver rewards quickly, if ever. They turned to slow, steady player development with their AHL affiliate. First that was the Norfolk Admirals before the Hawks brought their AHL operation closer to home in 2007 in a new agreement with the Rockford IceHogs just a little more than 90 minutes to the west on I-90.

Duncan Keith came through that program before he became Chicago’s blueline anchor for the next 16 seasons. Brent Seabrook’s AHL time was brief – just nine games between the regular season and the Calder Cup Playoffs – but it was his introduction to pro hockey coming out of the Western Hockey League. Future key pieces in Troy Brouwer, Adam Burish, Dustin Byfuglien, Corey Crawford, Colin Fraser, and Kris Versteeg all came through the organization’s AHL development program. So did Craig Anderson, though he ultimately landed elsewhere to commence his long NHL career.

By the time that the Blackhawks selected future captain Jonathan Toews third overall in 2006 and Patrick Kane number-one a year later, they already had the makings of a supporting cast with which to eventually surround two such must-have core pieces who could eventually take Chicago to three Stanley Cup championships in six seasons. Then came another wave of talent to replenish the Chicago roster after salary-cap considerations had started to eat away at it. Bryan Bickell, Niklas Hjalmarsson, Marcus Kruger, Nick Leddy, Antti Niemi, Brandon Saad, and Andrew Shaw all spent time with Rockford before becoming dependable NHL full-timers.

But now it’s 2024. Toews has not played in more than 18 months. Kane is in Detroit. Keith, Seabrook, and a host of other players from that Stanley Cup dynasty era have all retired. So here the Hawks find themselves again. Since winning that third Stanley Cup in six years back in 2015, the team has not won a playoff round. The Hawks have missed the postseason cut in six of the past seven seasons.

So the Blackhawks are in a full-fledged rebuilding effort helmed by general manager Kyle Davidson, who took that role in March 2022, and the IceHogs are a key component of that plan. To start, Davidson bought the Hawks some time this summer by bringing in veterans Tyler Bertuzzi, T. J. Brodie, Laurent Brossoit, Patrick Maroon, Alec Martinez, Craig Smith, and Teuvo Teravainen. Most of those players are on probably not long-term signings, at least not if their contracts are any indication. What they do provide is a base of proven NHL players who can play now and allow prospects to stay with Rockford.

And there are prospects.

Kevin Korchinski went to the Blackhawks as the seventh pick in the 2022 NHL Draft. He found himself an NHL regular at just 19 years old last season, and it showed. He struggled. He was a rookie defenseman on a struggling team. Forward Frank Nazar went six spots after Korchinski in that same 2022 pool. He ended up playing two seasons at the University of Michigan before turning pro late season. But he did so with all of 54 regular-season NCAA games behind him, and he’s only 20 years old himself.

Defenseman Artyom Levshunov is the latest addition to that burgeoning group. Chicago took him second overall at last June’s NHL Draft after his standout freshman season at Michigan State. There is every reason to think that he can become a fixture in Chicago.  But he just turned 19 this week and has just that one NCAA season. Two years ago he was in with Green Bay of the USHL.

So Davidson made a choice and sent the three to the IceHogs to begin this season in the AHL. Certainly Chicago management could have made a case to include the trio on the NHL roster. That would have meant that those players had “made” the NHL. Instead they are following a trend of placing even top-10 and top-15 picks in the AHL.

The Columbus Blue Jackets stationed David Jiricek with the Cleveland Monsters for parts of the past two seasons. Denton Mateychuk, last season’s WHL defenseman of the year, is with Cleveland this fall to open his pro career. Simon Nemec went to the Utica Comets as an 18-year-old. Moritz Seider had that same path as an 18-year-old, spending the 2019-20 season with the Grand Rapids Griffins. Two years later he had a Calder Trophy as the NHL’s top rookie. Shane Wright is only 20 years old, but he has already been to consecutive Calder Cup Finals with the Coachella Valley Firebirds, experience that prepared him for his fall’s promotion to the Seattle Kraken. Dan Bylsma, Wright’s head coach with both the Firebirds and the Kraken, has insisted that last season’s time in the AHL was vital for Wright’s long-term success.

But the goal, after all, is not to get a player to the NHL as quickly as possible. Rather, the objective is to keep the player in the NHL. Make that player a 10- or a 15-year NHL veteran, someone who can become a contributor if not a core piece of future Stanley Cup contenders. To that end, the Hawks have also made sure to provide ample teaching to their Rockford prospects, something that has become the norm for AHL affiliates. Former NHLers Chris Kunitz, Yanic Perreault, and Andy Delmore all are a part of Chicago’s development staff as is Kendall Coyne-Schofield.

To start, all three players will be able to take on heavy minutes with the IceHogs. There is also less of a spotlight in the AHL. And if the NHL club is losing, as this season’s Blackhawks are, using the AHL affiliate allows the organization to shield those players from the losses and pressure that will accumulate across the 82-game NHL season.

And they are playing alongside peers who could someday join them in Chicago. Rookie Samuel Savoie is with Rockford as is Colton Dach. Cole Guttman, someone who found himself pushed into duty with Chicago the past two seasons, is instead back with Rockford. On the back end is Ethan Del Mastro, an AHL All-Star as a rookie last season. So is Louis Crevier. Drew Commesso is in net as he starts his second pro season. The Hawks also have supplied some experience for those prospects. This week they brought in veteran Gerry Mayhew, someone who was the AHL’s most valuable player in the 2019-20 season and who can be a top-six forward. Brett Seney is back. Enforcer Brandon Baddock can look after the younger players on the ice as well.

After a slow start to the schedule in which Rockford has played just five games, the workload will begin to intensify this weekend. They play seven times in the first 15 days of November. Their December slate is a 13-gamer. 

Korchinski has been through a pro schedule before. Now Levshunov and Nazar have a chance to face those same demands.

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The Rockford IceHogs will host the Chicago Wolves on Saturday, Nov. 2 for FloHockey's AHL Game of the Week. The game will stream for free live across FloHockey's social media platforms. Be sure to tune in on X, YouTube or Facebook to catch the future stars of the Chicago Blackhawks and Carolina Hurricanes square off in a traditional AHL rivalry matchup.

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