Blackhawks get another crack at drafting elite forward with No. 3 pick in 2025 NHL Draft

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CHICAGO — Blackhawks general manger Kyle Davidson already knows what it’s like to draft first and second overall.

Connor Bedard was the easy selection for Davidson to take No. 1 in 2023. Drafting second was tricky last year, with the Blackhawks torn between a couple players and ultimately deciding on defenseman Artyom Levshunov.

And now, Davidson will get to experience what it’s like at No. 3 as the Blackhawks discovered their selection fate during the NHL Draft Lottery on Monday. The Blackhawks were only a number away from winning lottery again, but neither a No. 9 or 14 ball popped up last for them. Instead, the New York Islanders landed the unlikely winning combination, the San Jose Sharks moved down a spot to No. 2 and the Blackhawks fell into third.

The lottery could have gone slightly better for the Blackhawks, but it also could have gone worse.

“Third overall, we’re going to get a great player,” Davidson said while meeting with the media at the United Center. “I’m excited to head into meetings next week with our amateur group and start the process of nailing down where we want to line up the board and what it looks like. I think we stayed in a good range where I think we’re going to be really excited with what we end up with.”

Will it be Porter Martone? Caleb Desnoyers? Anton Frondell? James Hagens? Davidson didn’t tip his hand, just as he didn’t even when he drafted Bedard, but those are the names Davidson is expected to be choosing between. If Michael Misa somehow fell to third, the Blackhawks would be there to swoop him up.

All five of those players offer different skill sets, and over the coming weeks, we’ll dive into them. If Davidson, Blackhawks director of amateur scouting Mike Doneghey and their staffs want to prioritize a specific skill or certain kind of player, they can probably find it in that group. They’ll undoubtedly do that, too.

The Islanders and Sharks will dictate some of that as well. As of now, defenseman Matthew Schaefer and Misa are expected go first and second.

“The thing about the draft is there’s always a lot of public discourse and then I feel like there’s always those people who suggest their surprise picks,” Davidson said. “That’s just people seeing the board differently. That’s what makes the draft exciting. Everyone has different opinions, different thoughts on what makes players successful. And so, I think ours versus against any other team’s is going to be different and is going to be different from public. It’s exciting to get behind the curtain and really hammer away at what those tiers are, as you call it, or the rankings are for the Blackhawks and what our staff believes and how we see things lining up. Excited to do that, but we’re not quite at that point yet.”

While that part will come, there is one commonality we can already assume among the players the Blackhawks are likely to decide between at No. 3: it’s pretty certain to be a forward. All the pre-lottery debate about drafting a defenseman, specifically Schaefer, vanished with the actual lottery. Unless the Blackhawks’ board is extremely different than the ones being assembled in the public discourse, there isn’t another defenseman projected anywhere near the Blackhawks’ range. It’s Schaefer and a bunch of forwards.

For those following along Davidson’s drafts the last four years, that’s probably welcomed news. The debate last year was whether the Blackhawks could afford to pass up on an elite forward, specifically Ivan Demidov, to draft another defenseman. Davidson had already drafted Kevin Korchinski at No. 7 and Sam Rinzel at No. 25 in 2022, with other promising defensemen in the pipeline. Even with drafting forwards Bedard, Frank Nazar and Oliver Moore in the first round and others high in Davidson’s first two drafts, there was a belief (at least among fans) that the Blackhawks lacked enough high-end forwards for the future.

In the end, Davidson disagreed. He thought Levshunov was special and sought to continue building his team from the back. Davidson did go on to draft two forwards, Sacha Boisvert and Marek Vanacker, later in the first round last year, but Levshunov was the headliner. Whether Davidson chose right will be debated for years to come.

Artyom Levshunov, the No. 2 pick in the 2024 draft, played 18 games for the Blackhawks this season. (David Kirouac / Imagn Images)

But since the 2024 draft, something unexpected did happen — the Blackhawks finished worse than Davidson and plenty of others projected this season and that put them again near the top of the lottery come Monday. And this time around, when the Blackhawks are called to make that No. 3 selection, there won’t be a mystery around the position they’re taking. We may not know the name, but it’ll almost definitely be a forward.

That forward will likely be good one, too, or at least has a chance to be one.  There aren’t many absolutes in drafting. The Blackhawks know that well from past third-overall draft picks. As much as Jonathan Toews panned out in a historic way, Kirby Dach and Cam Barker are the Blackhawks’ other No. 3-overall picks in 25 years.

For now, like all teams heading into a draft, the Blackhawks get the benefit of collected optimism around early draft picks. The Blackhawks will be selecting possibly the second-best forward in the draft class. While the name recognition of this year’s forward group doesn’t match Leo Carlsson, Adam Fantilli or Demidov (who was actually the fourth forward selected last year) of recent years, there are plenty of scouting gurus who are plenty high on Misa, Martone, Desnoyers, Frondell and Hagens.

Add one of those to a forward group that includes Bedard, Nazar, Moore, Boisvert, Vanacker, Ryan Greene, Colton Dach, Landon Slaggert, Roman Kantserov, Nick Lardis, A.J. Spellacy, Samuel Savoie and Jack Pridham, among a handful other young players, and the Blackhawks could have plenty of quality forwards for the future.

It is noticeable already that this year’s draft lottery didn’t have the same buzz for the Blackhawks as recent ones. The draft pool might have something to do with it. But it also might have something to do with how the Blackhawks are expected to perform better in the next few years, and that next progression likely won’t happen with the first player the Blackhawks draft in June. The likes of Bedard and Nazar are so tied to where the Blackhawks go in the next couple years, but the No. 3 pick will likely be part of the next wave, probably with Boisvert, Vanacker, Kantserov and others.

Even if that is true, you have to remember this could still be a monumental pick for the Blackhawks in the years to come. They might not have a chance to draft a player with this type of upside again if their rebuild goes right.

Davidson doesn’t want to find out what it’s like to draft fourth anytime soon.

(Top photo of Porter Martone: Terry Wilson / OHL Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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