Chicago Blackhawks: The 2020-21 season is finally overVincent Pariseon July 8, 2021 at 1:00 pm

Now that the 2020-21 season is in the books, the Chicago Blackhawks (and every other team) can get the offseason going. There are some big events on the calendar before everyone breaks away for a month before training camp. It will start with the 2021 Seattle Kraken Expansion Draft. Chicago will lose at least one player in this event as Seattle starts to build their team.

Following that is the 2021 NHL Entry Draft and free agency. Those two events can change the landscape of the league as a whole. The Blackhawks have a long way to go to get back to the top of the NHL mountain so you can expect them to be busy during this time. They are the worst team in the traditional Central Division by far and need to take full advantage of these events.

The 2020-21 season had its challenges due to COVID-19 but there were some great moments. The Blackhawks were hot to start before the lack of depth caught up to them. There were also spectacular moments in the regular season from players like Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews, and Marc-Andre Fleury amongst others.

Each team only played 56 games within their division which is much shorter than the traditional 82 games over a league-wide schedule. It was really nice to see the players and teams buy into the protocols put in place to play safely yet at the highest level in the world. It was exhausting at times but everyone made it through.

As they handle the big summer offseason events, the hope is that they are able to return to the ice with fans at full capacity in all 32 arenas. They also should be able to have a normal schedule, normal divisions, and everything else that makes a normal hockey year so great. If we can get juniors, the AHL, and college hockey amongst the other great league in the world back to the way we are used to as well, the game as a whole will be what we know it can be.