CHICAGO — Twenty-two games. That’s all, just 22.
That’s how long the Blackhawks went without a franchise player, without a megastar, without an individual so talented and so spectacular that hope is always at hand, without the kind of player who makes every game worth watching, no matter how bleak things get.
And oh, those 22 games were bleak. Who could forget the Anders Bjork era? The Buddy Robinson era? The Austin Wagner era? Yes, everyone understood the plan, and most fans even seemed to embrace the tank as a necessary evil. But owning a bunch of draft picks and the rights to some...
