Blackhawks GM Kyle Davidson stands by Jeff Blashill, says he’s actively seeking trades

Chicago Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson held a 45-minute news conference Wednesday and said he retains full confidence in head coach Jeff Blashill despite the team's 4-13-1 record to open the 2026-2027 season. "The players believe in him. He's made them better," Davidson said, adding that he and Blashill are "very much on the same page with how we assess the team and how we think we can be better moving forward." Davidson also announced that assistant general manager Mark Eaton, who has overseen prospect development for five years, will join the coaching staff to work directly with the team's young defensemen. "This is akin to something you see in the NFL with a position coach," Davidson said. "[He will be] hyper-focused on improving individual defending skills, in this case, and not necessarily impacting the overall scheme."

Davidson acknowledged he is actively exploring trades but said none have materialized because other teams are reluctant to move players this early in the season. "This is a little bit of a precarious time where you don't want to do something for the sake of doing something and make a mistake that you're going to regret later," he said. He emphasized that experience is the top priority in trade targets, followed by defensive reliability, and that the team would not trade assets for a pending 2027 free agent given their distance from the playoff race. Davidson admitted the front office may have miscalculated by not adding a veteran defenseman in the offseason, referencing Bowen Byram's absence for 12 of 18 games. "Could we have benefited from one more veteran? It's very possible we may have," he said.

Davidson was blunt about the team's defensive failures. "Simply put, we've not been good enough," he said. "We're not defending well enough. We give up odd-man rushes — specifically two-on-ones and breakaways — at a rate that's one of the highest in the league." Captain Connor Bedard echoed support for Blashill, telling reporters, "100% belief. He gives us a great game plan and super easy to talk to, you really know his message. He and the whole coaching staff are doing a great job. ... There's no doubting what they're preaching, what they're doing, and we all have a ton of respect and love for all of them." Blashill said, "There's still a lot of belief of what that ceiling looks like for this team. We're just trying to grind our way through day-by-day to make steps towards getting to that ceiling, knowing that we're not taking an elevator." Davidson said chairman Danny Wirtz is "disappointed like all of us" and that the two "talk almost daily."