Bowman was awful as was the scouting and drafting. Look at the wasteland from 2008-2020.
His botching of those contracts that led to the lopsided/awful trades after the first cup.
How about 2010... we could have had Kevin Hayes and Brock Nelson, but bowman blew it with
Hayes and trades #30/Nelson for busts Ludvig Rensfeldt and Kent Simpson.
He was gifted the team and just about anybody could have brought in three cups in his position.
Can't believe I of all people will be defending Bowman regime on anything but his drafting was far from terrible or were Hawks wasteland at draft
Guys drafted by Bowman who have played 200 or more NHL regular season games
Kevin Hayes 2010 1st (713 games)
Justin Holl 2010 2nd (323 games)
Joakim Nordstrom 2010 3rd (444 games)
Phillip Danault 2011 1st (631 games)
Brandon Saad 2011 2nd (863 games)
Andrew Shaw 2011 5th (544 games)
Teuvo Teravainen 2012 1st (670 games)
Vinny Hinostroza 2012 6th (374 games)
Ryan Hartman 2013 1st (580 games)
John Hayden 2013 3rd (249 games)
Tyler Motte 2013 4th (400 games)
Nick Schmaltz 2014 1st (506 games)
Alex Debrincat 2016 2nd (532 games)
Henri Jokiharju 2017 1st (347 games)
Adam Boqvist 2018 1st (209 games)
Phillip Kurashev 2018 4th (266 games)
Kirby Dach 2019 1st (212 games)
Alex Vlasic 2019 2nd (97 games)
-- Vlasic establishing himself this past year as top 4 D made me throw him with group as its clear he barring catastrophic injury is guaranteed to be a 200+ guy --
Then you had guys who never could stick for variety of reasons (Johns was injuries) and a few outright busts (McNeill and Beaudin) who still saw NHL games as Bowman picks or guys coming along (Several current Hawks)
Dahlbeck (170 games), Johns (167 games),
Reichel (99 games),
Mitchell (95 games), Clendening (90 games),
Oloffson (85 games), Gilbert (82 games), Dahlstrom (67 games), Carlsson (60 games), Sikura (58 games),
Phillips (53 games), Kaiser (41 games) Johnson (32 games),
Shea (31 games),
Crevier (24 games), Beaudin (22 games),
Slaggert (16 games), Slavin (15 games), Galvas (6 games), Tomkins (6 games), Hillman (4 games),
Del Mastro (2 games), Paliotta (2 games), Broadhurst (2 games), McNeill (2 games), Simpson (1 game)
Bold = Still playing or played games in NHL as of this past season
44 players drafted by Bowman saw NHL action
Bowman drafting was far from disaster
The main thing that killed Bowman drafts was Hawks handling of young talent including trading several away in terrible moves either in attempt to try to eek out another cup (Somewhat understandable) or just absolutely putrid decision making (Trading Joker because of coach for instance)