Chicago Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson spoke with the media for around 45 minutes on Wednesday afternoon. It wasn’t what I would describe as a terribly comfortable engagement with the largest media contingent since the start of the regular season (thanks, Bears’ bye week and Bulls’ irrelevance).
Over the course of time that he spoke and answered questions, Davidson covered a lot as the Blackhawks look to break out of their disappointing start to the 2026-27 season. For the sake of keeping things relatively on point and more easily digestible, I’m going to break things up into a few pieces. The first of which is looking at Davidson’s comments about the Hawks being open for business on the trade market.
Davidson included in his opening remarks a comment confirming the Blackhawks being aggressive looking to improve the roster on the trade market — something that’s been speculated about by just about every major outlet over the past couple weeks.
“Recently at the GM meetings, there was an opportunity for a lot of good discussions,” Davidson said. “And I’ve made it clear around the league that we are intent in our attempts to improve the playing roster. … While we do have a lot of significant assets that are appealing around the league, we’re also not going to do something to make a bad deal. This is a little bit of a precarious time where you don’t want to do something for the sake of doing something and make a mistake that you’re going to regret later. And so that’s something top of mind, but that doesn’t change our intent and how we — myself and our staff — will approach opportunities around the league as they may present themselves.”
Right out of the gate, not only did Davidson confirm the immediacy of his intent to make a move. But he was specifically cautious surrounding the idea of making a move for the sake of doing it — which he should be. He went on to remind everyone that it takes two general managers to make a trade. And it there aren’t as many general managers ready, willing and able to make a deal as he is right now.
“You want to make a difference and you certainly can, but with respect to a trade, you have to have a partner and there’s also has to be something that’s functionally advantageous to pursue out there for you and that just hasn’t arose yet. It’s one of those things that you can try as hard as you can, but that effort doesn’t necessarily translate into a deliverable from the trade front. So yeah, that is frustrating, but it doesn’t deter the pursuit of trying to make something happen.”
Blackhawks Buying — While Selling
I later asked Davidson how comfortable he is with determining the balance between the future value of his current assets — draft capital, prospects, young players — and what he’s targeting on the market. Again, a pretty clean response from Davidson that the Blackhawks are not against moving seemingly significant pieces to make the right deal.
“In the end it’s certainly a case by case basis, but we’ll have to determine if the more immediate help is going to be something that will assist not only in the improvement of our team, but potentially in the development and assist in some support of some of the young players here in Chicago, which almost checks two boxes at once,” he said.
“And so we’ll have to evaluate that and it’s like every transaction there’s an ask and you probably have a price and depending on what that incoming piece is, then you have to navigate that on a case by case basis. But certainly we’re at a point now where we’re not against speaking on those future assets. We’re not holding those as closely as maybe we would have in years past. And so that’s something that certainly has been a transition over the last maybe year or so and we’ll continue moving forward. But we’re very interested in seeing what’s out there for some current roster help and to help support this group.”
I did ask Davidson if he has spoken with any individual players who might have some form of trade protection about a willingness (desire?) to be moved yet, but he declined to comment on that. Jay Zawaski followed up with a question about player(s) Davidson might specifically target on the trade market right now.
“Given the youth in our roster, I believe there’s some level of experience that would be beneficial for our group. And so it doesn’t mean they have to be towards the end of their career or anything like that level of experience. It’s just — there should be a player that’s, again, comfortable in this league. They can manage through situations on the ice that should things be chaotic, a little bit of a calming influence. And so I would say that versus any archetype of a player. Given our struggles, if it’s a defenseman, we want someone who’s proficient at defending. [That] doesn’t mean they’re not able to pitch in on the offensive side of things, but they have to be proficient in that. And then upfront it’s a little more varied, but I do believe that some level of experience is certainly beneficial and something that our group would do well by.”
