Bowen Byram, the Blackhawks‘ new No. 1 defenseman, and Mason West, one of their many forward prospects, are not remotely similar players — neither in age, caliber nor position.
But for Hawks general manager Kyle Davidson, Byram and West are two data points that form the start of a pattern.
Davidson’s impassioned explanations and justifications of his trade for Byram — which represented something of a break in character for a man who likes to set expectations low and isn’t usually brash with words — are actually reminiscent of his justification for trading up to pick West in the 2025 draft.
It was the end of a long, eventful, tiring June night when Davidson met with reporters after the first round of that 2025 draft, and it’s common for NHL GMs to be most honest and unfiltered in situations like that (when their brains are fried).
Davidson certainly was when discussing his decision to give the Hurricanes two extra picks — second- and fifth-rounders — just to move up from 34th to 29th to select West. The resulting quotes were some of the most memorable of his GM tenure.
“I don’t know what you call it, the stats or the analytics of it, [but] the trade we made to get back in the first round was not that,” Davidson said then. “I gave up probably a lot more to get back in to take Mason than the charts would suggest. And that’s OK. Sometimes we’re willing to do that and I’m willing to stick my neck out and really jump at a guy.
“I just really wanted to get back into the first round and take what I thought was a grand-slam hack. I was swinging for the fences and figured, ‘Why not? Let’s go for a big one here.'”
Davidson’s more recent decision to give the Sabres the fourth overall pick, plus beloved defenseman Louis Crevier and a second-round pick, for Byram (and salary-dump forward Jordan Greenway) fell in a similar bucket.
No analytics model considered it close to equal value — not the public models, and likely not the Hawks’ internal model, either.
Fourth overall for Byram, a former fourth overall pick himself, might’ve been close to equal, but the other involved pieces tipped the scales. The huge contract extension the Hawks then gave Byram — carrying a $12.5 million salary-cap hit — was also considered a heavy overpay by analytics models.
The Hawks have invested a lot in analytics — their nine-person department, filled with data scientists and engineers, is one of the league’s largest — and some critics questioned the purpose of that investment if the Hawks are going to make moves like this anyway.
But the Byram gamble largely came down to Davidson deciding, on another one-time basis, to ignore analytics and logic and take a grand-slam swing. His willingness to occasionally do that is becoming one of his signature quirks, distinguishing him from his GM peers.
It will take time to determine whether that quirk will prove fruitful for Davidson or instead undo the careful asset collection he spends the other 364 days of every year on.
When asked about the emerging pattern, though, he didn’t shy away from admitting to it. The fact the question came at the end of another long, eventful, tiring day — this time July 1, the start of free agency — might have again contributed to his response’s candor.
“I don’t believe that that’s something that you want to do consistently,” Davidson said. “But when appropriate, and when you’ve got someone there who you truly do believe in and you want to be aggressive toward, then I believe there is a lot of value just getting your guy and bringing them into your group.
“If you do that in every move, you’re going to lose out on that equation over the long haul. You don’t want to make a habit of it.
“But…there’s not many opportunities to get certain players that you really believe in, because they just don’t become available that often — whether in the draft or trade or whatever. Good players are very hard to come by. When you do believe and you do have an open lane to try to do something, I believe it’s incumbent on you to act and make it happen.”
He continued on for a while longer, adding that the strategy “may be not for everyone, but it’s my inclination to get it done.”
A talking point around the league this summer has regarded how it’s more difficult to build a team up than tear it down. It’s especially harder in this current environment, since there are currently so few tearing-it-down teams to partner with on would-be mutually beneficial trades.
Davidson has now entered that harder stage, and he’s hearing criticism for his approach so far — not only for the Byram trade in a vacuum, but also for doing that instead of finding an established top-six forward to help Connor Bedard.
Now that Bedard is slated to miss the first month or two of the regular season recovering from shoulder surgery, it will be interesting to see if Davidson pivots to adding another forward or if he patiently waits for Bedard’s return. A reunion with Patrick Kane, who’s currently a free agent, does seem possible.
Sharks GM Mike Grier, formerly a darling of the analytics community (to an almost absurd degree), has also taken heat lately for acquiring and overpaying Keifer Sherwood, for overpaying Jacob Trouba and for acquiring overpaid Darnell Nurse.
It’s no coincidence this heat coincides with Grier entering his own build-up era. It’s also worth noting Grier’s strong interest in Byram reportedly forced the Hawks to improve their offer to get him — they might’ve been able to keep, say, Crevier otherwise.
Over the next few years, it might prove to be that no GM can look good during an early build-up era within this extreme sellers’ market. Perhaps nobody can win these kinds of trades in the court of public opinion.
Perhaps the teams that emerge successfully from rebuilds in the 2020s — as the Canadiens are doing now — are going to be the teams whose big risks paid off, not the teams who avoided big risks.
That would still leave the Hawks dependent on Davidson’s hunches proving correct. But at least Davidson, for one, believes wholeheartedly, fervently and unconditionally in those hunches.