BLOG: Bowman Meets with Reporters Ahead of 2021 NHL Draft

The NHL Draft is just around the corner. On Thursday, President of Hockey Operations & General Manager Stan Bowman met with reporters to discuss an array of topics ranging from the draft, the trade of Duncan Keith, Jonathan Toews' return to the ice, his offseason roster priorities and much more.
Here are Bowman's full responses to some of the biggest questions during the press conference.

Opening remarks…

I know we have a lot to cover today, but I wanted to start things off by talking about the allegations against the Blackhawks in the two pending lawsuits. I'm going to start by saying that the Blackhawks organization takes these allegations very seriously. It's important for me to say off the top that I do not condone or tolerate harassment or assault of any type.
As you know, the Blackhawks have engaged an outside legal firm to conduct an independent review of these allegations, and we need to give the experts the necessary time and the latitude to do their job well. I understand that many of you will have questions on this topic and there will be time to answer those. I'm eager to speak about this in more detail in the future, but for now I have to respect the pending litigation and independent review that's underway. I'm not going to be able to make any comments on that at this time. We have to let the process play itself out.

On Jonathan Toews returning to skating…

We haven't had the chance to talk since Jonathan returned to the team. I had a chance to meet with Jonathan two days ago, we spent some time together. First off, it was great to see him in person. When this all started, back probably six or seven months ago, and I had a conversation with Jonathan and he indicated that he wasn't able to be at our training camp, we didn't know where this was going or how long he was going to be away from the team. The first and foremost thing was really concerned about him as a person and taking the hockey part out of it.
He's back with us now. It's nice to see he's back on the ice a little bit, but that's not really my focus. In our talk the other day, it was good just to catch up on things and learn what he's been through. For me, that's the big thing is focusing on Jonathan getting back to feeling great. When the time is right and when he's able to join our team, we're certainly going to welcome him back. He's a big part of the group here and just seeing him here daily, training with the guys has been a lot of fun.

On the Duncan Keith trade to Edmonton…

I have so many memories of Duncan as a Blackhawk. I think we all think about his contributions to the teams -- Norris Trophies, being the Conn Smythe winner and all those accolades -- but for me, the one thing I appreciate the most is his love of the game of hockey and sharing it with his son.
Colton is a big part of Duncan's life and I remember a couple times during the season, Dunc and I would spend half an hour talking about what it's like. He sees my kids around the rink quite a bit and he would ask me questions about how it was when they were little and you could tell he was starting to really get into it. Only once (this year) Colton was able to come and visit and I just remember how much that meant to Duncan.
So when I got the call a couple weeks ago and they asked if we would consider trying to find a place so he could be closer to Colton, it was hard in one sense because he's been a fixture on our team for so many years. I don't know if he ever got the right amount of credit for the role that he played on these great teams we had in the past. But I wanted to do right by Dunc and find him a place that would allow him to be closer to Colton. We were able to do that. I just want to take this time to thank him for all of his contributions to the Blackhawks. We're excited for him and wish him the best in Edmonton.

On upcoming draft, free agency…

There's a lot of excitement with our group. We're going to be able to have our staff in town, which is fun. With last year and the pandemic and the draft being a virtual draft, we weren't able to actually have everybody in town for it. So, it's great that we're able to get them to Chicago and we're going to be getting together later tonight as a group, in person, which is the first time that's happening. There's a lot of energy.
On top of the draft preparation, there's certainly a lot of movement around the league with the Expansion Draft and free agency's less than a week away. There's a lot of things happening. This is an exciting time.

On if there's a higher comfort level heading into second year of a virtual draft setting, scouting players based on video, etc...

Definitely. I've had some conversations with our staff just earlier today about how really the world has changed and the scouting world -- you try to take the best out of a strange situation. I think two years ago if you had asked me this question, it would've been a different answer, but I think we've found a different way to operate.
We've had a lot of communication with our scouting staff, much more frequent virtual meetings than we used to have and a lot more viewings of players on video. It was good that we were able supplement that with some in-person (viewings). It's a new way of looking at scouting and I think it's a better way. I like where we're at. I think our staff is energized. They've really taken to it and it's led to a lot more conversation, a lot more dialogue, more people seeing players from players from other regions that they wouldn't have the ability to do when you're only in-person.
I think we're making the best of it. The draft itself, it's a different format when you're not in an arena. I think there are some benefits to that too. We're trying to take advantage of all of that and so far it's been great.

On several members of the Blackhawks staff who are advancing women in hockey being selected to announce the team's eight 2021 draft picks…

That's something I take a lot of pride in, I really do. We looked at where we were a couple years ago and we didn't have nearly enough representation in our hockey ops group from females.
Meghan Hunter has been with us the longest and she does everything for us. She touches every part of our organization and this year, she's taken on a new role. In addition to everything she was doing, she became an amateur scout as well. That's something that was fun to see her evolution as an executive to now be a pretty big voice in our scouting group. But it's not just her.
We made a conscious effort over the last year or two to seek out more women to be part of our group. They bring so much to the table with their knowledge of the game and I think it's made us a better staff. That's something that I'm excited about. I'm thrilled that we're having them here to participate in the draft and this is really just the beginning, for me. I've seen the benefits of it and it's something that I would expect to continue to expand in the coming years.

On any plans with available salary cap space to use…

We do have some options, which is great. In the past, I feel like we've been in a different situation relative to the salary cap, maybe we didn't have as many avenues that we could pursue. Right now, we do have the ability, if we want to. That's not going to preclude us from doing anything. We have some flexibility.
That was a big part of the Duncan Keith trade. We certainly wanted to put him in a position that was going to work for him, but the benefit for us was that we were able to get a young defenseman in Caleb Jones that we think has a lot of upside; he's kind of just coming into his own. On top of that, we cleared up some cap space, we got another draft pick for next year. I think that trade really served a couple different purposes for us and it put us in a position here leading into free agency where we're going to be able to pursue some players, if it works out. We are also having some trade conversations with teams and we're in a spot where we can maybe do some things relative to the cap.
It's true that we have two players in (Brent) Seabrook and (Andrew) Shaw that are injured, and there's some ability to use long-term injury if we want. That's not always the best approach if you can avoid it, so we're looking at all of our options right now. I think we're positioned pretty well as we head into the next few days here.

On assets collected over the last year potentially being used to acquire impact players…

It's possible. We were certainly looking to collect as many draft picks or young players as possible and I think we had a pretty good season to be able to do that. We brought in some young players through trade, but we also made some moves where we acquired more draft picks.
Looking at our group today, comparing it to our group a year ago, I think we've built out our asset pool and at some point you want to turn those into something else, but it doesn't necessarily have to be now. What we're trying to do is assess what's out there in the market. I will say we're not going to just make transactions because we can. We do have an idea. We want to continue to be strategic about the moves that we make. That's going to guide us over the next couple of weeks here.

On team's top priorities during the offseason…

We're trying to continue to push this forward in a couple different areas.
If you have a chance to acquire a number one defenseman, you have to look into it whether it's through free agency or through trade. I say that, (but) that would've been the case a year ago as well. That's just a critical piece of a team. There's not 32 number one defensemen in the league. I was looking at this yesterday, there's probably 10-15, maybe, that really categorize as number one defensemen. It's a very small supply of those and they don't come available too often. If they do, you have to investigate, 'Does it work? Could it work?'. So, that's not really anything different today than it would've been two years ago. We're probably positioned a little bit better today, but at the same time, it's very difficult to acquire top defensemen, so that's no our only focus.
I think we like our depth on defense. If you look at our group now, we've seen some of our young defensemen take steps forward. Adam Boqvist, (Nicolas) Beaudin and (Ian) Mitchell, they all show they're NHL-caliber players. We've added Caleb Jones and Riley Stillman. We have a lot of young defensemen. Even Alec Regula got some time late in the season. I'm feeling pretty good about our depth on defense. I think now what we're trying to do is look up front maybe for some help there.
We do have some new players coming back. When I say new, we didn't have Jonathan Toews or Alex Nylander last year. We have Henrik Borgstrom coming in. So, we have quite a few players, and now we're trying to sift through that to find out what's the best combination and mixture for next year. I wouldn't say we have one glaring weakness or one specific area that we're only trying to address. It's more small improvements throughout our lineup.

On if Toews, Nylander will be ready for training camp…

Nylander's situation is a little different because he had a surgery and the return to play protocols for that are a little bit more in stone compared to what Jonathan's been going through.
Alex is 100%. He's ready to go, so by training camp, he's training and he's preparing like normal. He'll be ready.
Jonathan, we don't know. This is what I have been saying all along, and I know some of the media either didn't like what I was saying or maybe was questioning it, but the truth is we don't know. And Jonny doesn't know how he's going to feel, and none of us have a crystal ball to know how he's going to feel in September. He's here training and he's working through getting back to where he can play for us. We'll just take that as it comes though, I don't think we have to try to put any pressure on him being ready for a certain date. We'll just see where it goes.

On one year since rebuild was announced, roster changes since and if they've expedited the return to a playoff team…

We're still building. I think there's a temptation to try to label where we are in that progression. Of course the reason we're putting all this work in is we want to be a playoff team. We want to win. We want to have that excitement of being a top team. We're not where we want to be, but it does take a process to get there. I think we're well into that process.
As far as the next steps, we need to continue on the path that we're on, which is giving our young players an opportunity. That's what we talk a lot about, going back to last October, was really giving them a chance to show us what they can do, as well as take the next step in their career. And if we have enough of the young players taking small steps, then our team should be taking steps as well.
If you have an opportunity throughout to then accelerate that progress, of course we want to do that. We've been doing that over the last few months -- having conversations, trying to see is there a way to make this go quicker. I think the challenge there is you don't want to do things that are maybe irresponsible to just quicken the process. We're committed with where we're headed, with trying to build things up. If we can take a step forward, whether it's in the next couple weeks, couple months or during the season, if we have the ability to make a transaction that's going to accelerate our progress, we're certainly going to approach that. It doesn't have to be one or the other.