Going into this season, I was worried the Chicago Blackhawks would not have enough depth to be competitive. The Blackhawks had lost Teuvo Teravainen, Andrew Shaw and Bryan Bickell from their core. They also lost trade deadline additions Andrew Ladd, Dale Weise and Tomas Fleischmann in the offseason.
That is seven forwards who had played roles for the Blackhawks last season that needed to be replaced.
The Hawks replaced all of those forwards with relative unknowns Tyler Motte, Nick Schmaltz, Vincent Hinostroza and Ryan Hartman.