The Blackhawks have a great deal of short and long term questions surrounding their competitive outlook. No matter how it’s dressed up, this is three years without the playoffs. If they beat oilers, okay, playoff berth with a HUGE asterisk. Statistically, the team wasn’t projected to finish with any more points then last year. The PP was great last year and the PK sucked. This year, the reverse. Stan bowman has restocked the pool, especially on defense, but plenty of holes still remain. Colliton is still bad. Sorry, but just bad. Inexperienced, poor man management, and bad tactical philosophy.

Having said all that, the worst atrocity is how we have WASTED, yes WASTED, prime years of Kane and toews. My question in this thread is: are the hawks focused on the short term or the long term? Is the window open or closed? Finally, do we as fans truly believe this team is capable of winning a cup in the next three years before Kane and toews’ contracts are up?

A lot of the faith we seem to have in this team is based around Kane and toews still banging away mixed with the young prospects coming up. Personally (surprise surprise), I don’t see the window being open. Plain and simple, I don’t believe any of our top prospects will making a “cup winning” impact for the team before Kane and toews are in the sunset. Not to mention, seabrook and Keith still being around, which can be great for the defensive prospects to learn from, also impedes young prospects trying to get into the team. I love Adam boqvist and Ian Mitchell. If there was a way to snap my fingers and make seabrook go poof, I would. We can pretend cap issues don’t exist on this team anymore, but come on everyone, they are and always will be there. Also, what do we at goaltender? Crawford is slipping in into old habits AND who knows if vertigo is still a problem. Just ask philly how bad goaltending can hold you back....