Hopefully Riechel or Nazar can develop into a great 4th guy.

Also Seth Jones is kinda part of our core like it or not at this point lol.

The core 4 would be:

Bedard, Korshinski, Moore and Reichel

With Nazar being the 5th wheel

Also let’s not ignore Dach and Raddysh

Nazar almost made my TBD list I worry about hip issues this early in his career. I would love nothing more than to see this kid rebound health-wise and prove me wrong.

But are they guys that are "untouchable" and you pay them whatever they want going foward? The core 4 that won us Cups was 1. Kane 2. Toews 3. Keith 4. Hossa .

I think if Kyle found a way to part with Jones he would and for that reason he is not part of the "Core 4". By definition you do everything you can to retain a core. I am a Jones fan but I think he is probably this generation's Brian "Soupy" Campbell a big FA who we had to overpay to stay with us who ultimately ended up not being loved as much as he should have been due to the contract.

So here’s how we’re lining up at the moment:

Reichel Bedard Moore
Hayes Dach Nazar
Savoie Guttman Raddysh
Kayumiov Greene Kantserov

Korshinski Jones
Vlasic Rinzel
Kaiser Crevier

Soderblom
Gajan

That's not a terrible future. Hopefully, we will find another "Hossa" level FA in the years ahead as well to support this cast. Really like picture you painted here thanks IconicHawk!

Only time I've heard the term core 4 is with torontos 4 overpaid forwards that have never won anything. Is core 4 actually a thing? Serious question.

Hawks 100 percent referred to 88-19-2-81 as their core 4.

Really? Never heard that said about the hawks. They were way more than 4 players. Seabrook, sharp, hjalmarsson...

They definitely had more than 4 players that they surrounded their "core" with. The concept is basically anyone else is and can be moved if it helps develop the team without moving the "core" pieces of the team.

I get the idea. I just never heard it said about those hawks teams. I remember the order of importance, back then, being toews, Kane, Keith, Seabrook, Hossa. In that order. So if you wanted to say they had a core 4 it would've been 19, 88, 2, and 7.

Yeah. I remember hearing them refer to "the core" but never specifically "the core 4". I'm pretty sure they considered their core to be more than just 4 players for a handful of those years. I feel like it was closer to 19-88-81-2-7, with 50, 4, and 10 being sort of honorary "core players".