Utah lines
Keller Hayton Schmaltz
McBain Cooley Guenther
Maccelli Doan Crouse
Kerfoot Stenlund O’Brien
Carcone Yamamoto
Sergechev Durzi
Cole Kolyachonok
Valimaki Kesserling
Bortuzzo
Ingram/Vejmelka
Injured: Marino Bjustad Weber Douglas Lipkin
Looking at the depth of young talent in that top 6, knowing that they themselves are still a solid distance away from where you need to be to contend, that really goes to show you just how far away the Hawks are from having the roster alongside Bedard ready to compete in the playoffs. How far away we are in terms of young talent at forward, to be more specific.
The good news: In time....we will get there. Its just gonna be another couple years of sucking and drafting in the lottery. I think when we landed Bedard most people naturally envisioned best possible case scenarios where we'd be ready to compete in just a short 2-3 years. In reality its gonna be more like 4-5.
With the pieces/prospects we currently have cooking, plus the future drafts, you can put together something like this in lets say 3 years(The start of the 2027/28 season):
The Hossa 2.0 acquisition-Bedard-Nazar
2026 1st-2025 1st-Moore
Vanacker/Dach-Boisvert-The Ladd 2.0 acquisition
Lardis/Slaggert-Veteran 4C(John Madden 2.0)-Spellacy/Marcel
Korchinski-Levshunov
Vlasic-Jones
EDM/Allan/Kaiser-Rinzel
Veteran Goalie(Kinda like Niemi but hopefully better 2.0)/Commesso
I'm probably off on a lot of this and forgot several details/additional players/options. But this is the basic idea i would think.
Fun, young, and ready to run and gun. Ready for a push at the playoffs. Fastest team in the league candidate. Most exciting team to watch candidate. Its all possible if we make smart decisions and get a new coach. Which i believe we will. Hawks future is incredibly bright and as an added bonus i believe the league wants us to succeed and will do whatever it can to get us back to prominence. I think we might yet land another top 3 pick. Maybe even another #1OA. Fun times in the coming years!