Blackhawks’ future roster and salary cap, Part 2: Projecting pieces through 2030

The Athletic s Corey Pronman often reminds me that he predicts the Chicago Blackhawks rebuild to take much longer than people expect.

Most people assume itll take four to six years Pronman places it around eight to 10.

The Blackhawks are in their third season of rebuilding.

The first was a complete teardown, which resulted in Connor Bedard .

Last season was supposed to be better, but injuries derailed any hope of that, and the Blackhawks took Artyom Levshunov with the No.

2 pick.

And while the Blackhawks are more competitive this season, their results have been similar to the past two seasons.

Before Wednesdays games, the Blackhawks were 32nd in points percentage and aligned with another top-five draft pick.

Advertisement Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson is unlikely to be alarmed by any of this.

When he took over, his long-term plan wasnt centered around being successful early on.

His focus was getting as many high draft picks as possible and putting together a team of them in the future.

How long will that take? Our two-part series projecting the Blackhawks roster through the 2029-30 season may help answer that.

In the first part, we focused on the 2025-26 season .

In this part, we advance the projections over four more seasons.

The roster projections get more speculative by the year.

Players like Colton Dach and Martin Misiak may replace other players on these rosters.

Of course, its also unlikely Davidson will build these teams with so many of his own prospects, but you can see how its possible.

The Blackhawks have a lot of picks coming.

2026-2027 season Heading into 2026-27, well know how much Bedards second contract will cost the Blackhawks.

Will he sign a bridge deal or a long-term deal? What percentage of the salary cap will he seek? Of course, what he does over the next season and a half could play into that.

Players who have warranted 14 to 15 percent of the cap on their second deals were already producing at elite rates by this point.

With three goals and 13 points in 17 games this season, Bedard isnt there yet.

The Blackhawks know how important he is to the franchise, though.

Hes the main attraction and will be for the foreseeable future.

If the Blackhawks can persuade Bedard to sign an eight-year extension, itll likely be a massive number at the time but more digestible in the long term.

For example, if the cap ceiling increases to around $96 million for the 2026-27 season and Bedard seeks 15 percent of that about what Auston Matthews and Connor McDavid got on their second deals Bedards cap hit would be $15.6 million.

If Bedard isnt producing at their rates by next season, 10 to 12 percent might be more realistic, which could be in the range of $10 million to $13 million.

Advertisement Bedards contract isnt the only one Davidson will have to figure out before the 2026-27 season.

Kevin Korchinski, Frank Nazar and Lukas Reichel will also be restricted free agents leading up to that season.

As of now, none of those players will likely get large contracts.

That could change during the 2024-25 season, but none of those players has much NHL production to give them much leverage.

Aside from Bedards, the Blackhawks other major contracts will be Seth Jones ($9.5 million), Tyler Bertuzzi ($5.5 million), Teuvo Teravainen ($5.4 million) and Alex Vlasic ($4.6 million).

Philipp Kurashev will also likely be on another contract.

If the Blackhawks dont make a major offseason splash leading into the 2025-26 season, as I speculated last week, it could come the following offseason.

McDavid, Kirill Kaprizov , Jack Eichel , Artemi Panarin and Kyle Connor are among the players who could become free agents before the 2026-27 season.

The likely permanent newcomers to the 2026-27 roster will be Drew Commesso , Ryan Greene, Nick Lardis, Oliver Moore, Paul Ludwinski, Roman Kansterov and Sam Rinzel.

Here are the likely players in the 2026-27 lineup with their ages at the start of the season and where their contracts are likely to stand: 2027-28 season The Blackhawks will have some tough roster decisions as more of their high-round picks make their way through the system.

By the 2027-28 season, the Blackhawks could be introducing three first-round picks to their lineup.

That could include Sacha Boisvert and Marek Vanacker, who were drafted in the first round in 2024, and whomever they take with their first pick in 2025.

If Mondays standings were to hold, the Blackhawks would have the best odds of picking first in the 2025 draft.

The No.

1 player in Corey Pronmans recent rankings was Porter Martone, a winger.

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Spellacy could be another newcomer to the lineup.

Depending on where prospects are in their development, the Blackhawks may look to buy out Bertuzzi.

As you can see below, the lineup decision could get challenging.

Here are the likely players in the 2027-28 lineup with their ages at the start of the season and where their contracts are likely to stand: 2028-29 season The Blackhawks might have some roster stability and a chance to be a Stanley Cup contender in 2028-29.

Their lineup will still be young, but itll be full of experienced players in their primes.

Most of the lineup will have two or three seasons of NHL play behind it.

Bedard will be in his sixth season.

The defense could stick together for a few seasons.

Here are the likely players in the 2028-29 lineup with their ages at the start of the season and where their contracts are likely to stand: 2029-2030 season If Davidsons plan works, the Blackhawks should be a consistent Stanley Cup contender at this point.

The cap could be crunching the Blackhawks at this point, too.

Nearly everyone on this roster will be beyond his entry-level contract.

Its going to get more important as time goes on for Davidson to get the numbers right, move on from players when needed and bring in a few more prospects.

Here are the likely players in the 2029-30 lineup with their ages at the start of the season and where their contracts are likely to stand: (Photos of Connor Bedard and Artyom Levshunov: Steph Chambers / Getty Images and Nathan Vestal / Rockford IceHogs).

This article has been shared from the original article on theathleticuk, here is the link to the original article.