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CHICAGO At the start of the season, defenseman Xavier Villeneuve was ranked the fourth-best prospect in the 2026 draft by The Athletics Corey Pronman: a tantalizing, point-a-game offensive dynamo who frequently earned comparisons to Lane Hutson.
In that same ranking, winger Ryan Roobroeck came in at 14th overall, a bruising power forward coming off a 41-goal, 46-assist season in the Ontario Hockey League.
Advertisement They saw their stock fall significantly over the course of the 2025-26 season.
But Villeneuves skill and skating are still there.
Roobroecks power and finishing ability are still there.
The risk exists, but so does the potential reward.
And when you have The Athletics top-ranked prospect pipeline, loaded with young players who are already either in the NHL or knocking on the door, you can afford to take a couple of big swings.
So the Blackhawks took both Villeneuve and Roobroeck in Saturdays NHL Draft 34th and 35th overall, after moving up two slots to select Roobroeck landing first-round talent early in the second round.
It likely speaks to how we feel about the players weve got in the system and how theyve progressed, Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson said.
The fact that we can take a look at some of these guys that do have that high upside and that really desirable possibility of what they could be.
I dont necessarily know if theyre boom-or-bust guys in our eyes, but they are certainly high-upside players that we really like.
Villeneuve hopes to be a Hutson-like player on the back end, while Roobroeck listed Leon Draisaitl and Mikko Rantanen as players he tries to emulate.
(Im like Brad Pitt, quipped Blackhawks scouting director Mike Doneghey in response.) Roobroeck was considered for rare exceptional status in the OHL as a 15-year-old, but ultimately was denied.
But its a sign of just how long hes been on NHL teams radar as a top prospect in the 2026 pool.
Drafting the wrong undersized defensemen from 2016 to 2018 contributed to where the Blackhawks are today.
During that span, the Blackhawks took Chad Krys, Henri Jokiharju, Ian Mitchell, Adam Boqvist and Nicolas Beaudin, who were all 6-foot-0 or shorter, either in the first or second round with the hopes of them being future top-four defensemen.
Today, only Jokiharju is still under contract in the NHL.
Advertisement Under Davidson, the Blackhawks had gone the opposite route.
All six of the defensemen he drafted in his first four years were 6-1 or taller.
On Saturday, he broke from that trend and took Villeneuve.
I just think the dynamic offense, the skating, Davidson said when asked how Villeneuve might be different.
He has a lot of traits that are required of a smaller defenseman to work moving forward and so that certainly played into it.
Villeneuve also won Davidson over off the ice.
Honestly for me personally, he was just one of those guys, too, that really popped for me when I met him in person, Davidson said.
I love the passion he spoke with when he talked about the game, how he talked about the game, even just knowing about the league.
You can tell he loves the game and loves the sport.
I just felt the passion oozing out of him, that gives you a good belief that hes going to do everything possible in his power to become the player he can be.
Its a whole package, theres a holistic aspect to that.
But from a hockey standpoint, the offense and the skating is one that you need to see from a defenseman of his size to have a good feeling that theyll be able to make it moving forward.
If Villeneuve were just an inch or two taller, he might have gone a lot earlier (and for what its worth, he thinks he might not be done growing).
Does an inch or two really make that much of a difference, or is that 6-0 mark a psychological barrier for scouts and GMs? (Shayne) Gostisbehere is not that big and he just won the Stanley Cup, Doneghey said.
You cant have six (short defensemen), but we felt with (all the big defensemen) we do have ..
And for these guys, its three to five years.
You dont know what our team is going to look like then, or if hes going to get to 6-1.
But that was one of the things Kyle brought up after our January meetings.
Hes like, I hear everything about this kid, and the only downfall is hes 5-11.
What if hes 6-1? Well, hes probably top of class, like hes in that top-10 skill set with all the guys who went (Friday) night.
But thats how this league is.
Advertisement Not that it matters now, the Blackhawks would have drafted defenseman Chase Reid if they had kept the No.
4 overall pick.
If Ivar Stenberg and Reid had been gone, they were considering trading down.
The Blackhawks may not have drafted Reid, but there is some similarity to his draft projection and Villeneuves.
In Byron Baders NHLe projection model, Reid and Villeneuve both had the 10th-highest probability among all 2026 eligible players to become full-time NHLers.
Both are at 78 percent.
Baders model also projects potential value in Roobroeck.
With the 2026 draft behind them, the Blackhawks now sit in an enviable position with three first-round picks in the next draft.
Davidson was able to turn the No.
4 pick in this draft into defenseman Bowen Byram.
Can he turn some combination of those three 2027 first-rounders or all three into Jason Robertson? Or even Zach Werenski? Without getting into specifics, Davidson didnt rule anything out.
Were definitely looking to make some stuff happen, he said.
Again, I stand up here a lot and say Im open to it.
Again, its got to make sense, fit for both sides, and you got to accomplish (something) for the other team as well.
So we continue to have those discussions.
We do have a lot of good assets.
I think weve showed weve kind of taken a different route where were not afraid to use some of these high-value assets to bring in some players who we think can be with us for a long time.
Strictly futures likely wont be enough to land someone like Robertson, who was almost traded to Seattle before he turned down a contract-extension offer with the Kraken.
The Dallas Stars are still trying to re-sign Robertson, but if they cant, theyre still in the middle of their championship window and will be looking for win-now players in a potential trade.
The Minnesota Wild had to include Marco Rossi and Zeev Buium to pry Quinn Hughes from the Vancouver Canucks, and Dallas had to part with Logan Stankoven to get Rantanen from the Carolina Hurricanes.
In Blackhawks terms, that could equate to someone like Frank Nazar, Oliver Moore or perhaps Artyom Levshunov.
Is Davidson prepared to deal away a high-upside player in whom hes invested so much time and development? A player hes grown fond of? Advertisement Theres always an emotional component to it, right? he said.
You believe in these players.
You draft them for a reason, you develop them and you see the path for them to become really good players for you in the NHL.
I think (with) that time and energy, naturally, you build an affinity towards these people as players and people.
It is tough sometimes that you have to make those decisions.
Having said that ..
you have to give up something good to get that.
Thats just part of the business.
I dont think you can let that hold you in place and freeze you.
But its certainly in play.
It shouldnt stop you from doing anything either.
Here are Donegheys capsule scouting reports on the Blackhawks other three draft picks.
Samu Alalauri, Finnish right-shot defenseman, heading to UMass next season: Hes been to all the U-18 tournaments, power-play guy.
It was him and (Juha) Piiparinen, theyre kind of the two go-to defensemen on Finland at all the events.
We really liked this guy at the Ivan Hlinka tournament.
He just kept getting better and better, and he meets our traits hes 6-3, hes a right shot, so theres value there.
He can skate all day, he can handle a puck.
Alexander Ivanov, Russian left-shot defenseman: We had him actually really high.
But you never know with the Russians, just because everythings on video.
Hes not a (Dan) Milstein client, so he wasnt in Florida last weekend.
But hes 6-3, hes a left shot.
The luxury of those guys that we saw with Roman (Kantserov), you can leave them over there and hope they develop and they get in the right situations.
Hell start with exhibition games in the KHL and then its on him whether hes in the KHL (or) VHL, but we have time with him.
It could be three years, four years, depending on what goes on with contracts and stuff like that.
I think he has two years left on a KHL contract.
William Sorbrand, Swedish winger: (Chief European scout) Mats Hallin was very passionate about this kid.
Hes 6-4, he can skate, he plays heavy.
Secondary skill.
Like, hell chip pucks in from the net-front, but hes strong along the boards and can really skate.
And he has a physical element to him.
Blackhawks fans had seen enough of Andre Burakovsky in a top-six role long ago.
Davidson came to a similar conclusion as he began projecting next seasons lineup and traded Burakovsky to the Ottawa Senators for a 2027 sixth-round pick.
With the emergence of some of your young players and Roman Kantserov coming over, just felt like there was a more difficult road to a meaningful role for Andre, Davidson said.
So gave Burky a start somewhere else.
He was a great person, Im happy we had him.
He was awesome around the room.
He was great with the group, so we wish him nothing but the best.