It's a good thing that Toews will not be gone for too long. The Hawks can not afford to have as many injuries as they did last season if they want to have a shot at the playoffs this year.

The Hawks don't have the slightest chance of making the playoffs even with a healthy crew. Their goal should just be to develop their rookies and not come in last place.

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The Hawks have a lot of really good young players. If Khabibbulin stays healthy this year the Hawks will be in the hunt for a playoff spot. I won't be surprised if they miss the playoffs but will be surprised if they are lower than 10th place.

If they were in the East, I would agree with you. Everything below 6th seed is a crapshoot and at least one dark horse is going to sneak in.

There is way too much competition in the West to give them a shot at anything that high in the rankings.

Detroit, San Jose, Calgary, Colorado, Minnesota, Anaheim, Vancouver, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Nashville, Dallas. That's 11 teams that are all but guaranteed better spots than Chicago, and the first 7 of which are all but guaranteed playoff appearances. They could maybe get ahead of Dallas, Nashville, Los Angeles or St. Louis who are the would-bes to round out 8-11 in this scenario. But it's highly unlikely they will finish ahead of all of those last four teams, giving them the #8 spot.

Yeah, it's a lot of speculation pretty early on. And no, I'm not saying it *CAN'T* happen. But it would take nothing short of a miracle.

For the nitpickers, depending on injuries you could rotate Dallas, Vancouver, Calgary and Minnesota in the final standings. The point remains though that it's unlikely that so many teams get knocked out by injuries and consistent unspeakably bad play that Chicago sneaks ahead of a whole handful of much better teams. They would probably just shuffle in the standings with most of them staying above Blackhawks and still not knocking enough teams far enough down the ladder to let the Hawks sneak in.

So after a whole bunch of rambling and speculation.. I'd call the 'hawks getting 10th seed their absolute best case scenario, but still highly unlikely. Going to the playoffs, pretty much out of the question unless a couple team's planes go down in a blaze of fire while on a road trip.

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Well I'm sure you have a better idea of the west than I do but I still think they will be up there. They have some very talented young guys like Toews, Ruutu and maybe Kane but have some guys to show them the ropes in Lapointe, Havlat and Pereault as well as Lang and Samsonov who could both be very good. The defence is pretty good, (I saw them play last year against the Sens and Seabrook and Barker both looked great) although it is young they have Khabibulin back there to help cover any mistakes.
Your list of teams looks pretty good to make the playoffs but I see the hawks at about the same level as the kings and blues. The kings young guys might be a year or 2 ahead of the hawks but Chicago has better goaltending.
No matter what happens it will be a great year, seems as though a lot of teams in both conferences have improved.

Well the tie for 9th ended up being pretty close to the playoffs.
This is a great young team who i am sure starting next year will be in the payoffs on a regular basis for a while.