Kane Is Here. Now Chicago Has to Stay Healthy Enough to Matter.

The pitch worked. Connor Bedard said he wanted Patrick Kane, and ten days later Kane was a Blackhawk again. That part went cleanly. What hasn't gone cleanly is everything around it. Bedard is recovering from shoulder surgery and won't be ready for the start of the season. Artyom Levshunov, who averaged nearly 20 minutes a night last year and was the most productive young defenseman on the roster, is on injured reserve. So is Ryan Ellis. Andrew Mangiapane and Matt Grzelcyk went down in July too. Chicago assembled a more interesting roster than it had any right to this quickly, and then the injury report started eating it.

The Kane signing still makes sense on its own terms. He's a future Hall of Famer returning to the building where he won three Cups, and the $16 million price tag shocked some people around the league — I noted that reaction yesterday — but the front office clearly decided the veteran presence was worth it alongside a core that includes Tyler Bertuzzi, Andre Burakovsky, and Teuvo Teravainen. Roman Kantserov joined the day after, and the forward group has real depth on paper. On paper.

The defensive side is where it gets uncomfortable. Bowen Byram is locked in on a six-year deal and is the clear cornerstone of that group, but Levshunov's absence is a real loss — he was logging heavy minutes and producing at a rate that suggested a significant step forward was coming. Without him, and with Ellis still on IR, the back end that was supposed to be the offseason's structural fix is already thinner than intended heading into camp.

My read is that the next month is mostly about health reports, not roster moves. The pieces are largely in place. The question is how many of them are actually available when training camp opens.