Column: For the Chicago Blackhawks remodel to work, their new house had better be built on a strong foundation

Chicago Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson hadn’t yet gotten to the part of the NHL trade deadline window in which he traded Patrick Kane and Max Domi, but it already felt as if his approach to roster management evoked a certain home-flipping TV show.

Like his fellow Canadians Drew and Jonathan Scott, could Davidson be a long-lost “Property Brother”?

Or perhaps that should be “Prospect Brother.”

Give Davidson some credit: He has snagged a few gems out of nowhere such as Sam Lafferty but then later flipped the former Pittsburgh Penguin (by unloading Stan Bowman’s fixer-upper Alex Nylander, that next got fixed up) and Jake McCabe to the Toronto Maple Leafs for a package that included a 2025 conditional first-round pick, a 2026 second-round pick and prospects Joey Anderson and Pavel Gogolev.

Now Davidson bristles at the reputation that he’s becoming a flipper, Prospect Bro, whatever you want to call him.

After the trade deadline expired Friday afternoon, he said: “I’ve said before, I think the two players everyone pointed to were Max and Andreas that, ‘Oh, we signed them to trade them.’ We did end up moving Max, but we didn’t move Andreas and in all honesty, I wasn’t actively pursuing moving Andreas because we like having him here and we like the pace and we also like what Max brought too.

“Sometimes the value that comes your way is something you can’t pass up. So you don’t sign — at least I don’t sign — players just to trade them. You bring them in because they play a certain way and they conduct themselves a certain way and they’re going to be a good influence in the locker room for the organization, for the community, for the other players and especially in our case, the younger players. That’s why you sign them.

“You don’t necessarily sign them to move them.”

He wasn’t finished.

“The criteria we filter players that we bring in are things that everyone values,” Davidson said. “Perhaps other teams value that as well and maybe they call” about a trade. “But I don’t sign players to trade them.”

Hey, if it works, why downplay it? Lean into it. Mediocrity gets you nowhere.

Domi had been a rental for the Carolina Hurricanes last season, and he signed a one-year deal with the Hawks over the summer.

He put up 18 goals and 31 assists in 60 games for the Hawks — 10 of those goals on the power play. His goal pace would put him at 25 over a full season, three shy of his career-high 28 in 2018-19 with the Montreal Canadiens. And his 53.7% faceoff percentage would be a career high.

Those qualities made him an attractive target for the Dallas Stars, and the Hawks were able to net a 2025 second-round pick. Such a transaction isn’t painless. Domi was gregarious and well-liked in the Hawks locker room.

“Domes came in and was a big part of our team,” Seth Jones said, “not only on the ice but off the ice. Guys enjoyed being around him.”

Caleb Jones said Domi “came in and he was a big leader for us and a voice in the room. He played so hard and you wish (him) nothing but the best. You want to see him go on a Cup run and watch him succeed in the playoffs.”

But keeping Domi wouldn’t have served his or the Hawks’ best interests.

Before the Chicago Cubs won a World Series in 2016, they hit the reset button on the roster and were open about the growing pains with the public. The Bears are doing something similar.

If you’re going to rebuild House Blackhawk, might as well tear it down to the studs.

The NHL draft doesn’t promise any player will pan out, especially after the first half of the first round. But Davidson seems to be employing the buckshot method: You fire enough high picks at the draft board, something’s likely to hit.

In the first four rounds of the next three drafts, provided conditions are met, the Hawks have six first-round picks, eight seconds, five thirds and three fourths.

Some would say that’s a nice haul. Others might wonder why they don’t have more first-round picks.

We’ll see how they pan out.

But for now, the Hawks will be fielding more than their fair share of AHL call-ups to try to muddle through the rest of the season.

Luke Richardson had a lot to do with boosting the stock of some of the aforementioned “flips,” so It would be natural for the first-year coach to feel like the chair has been kicked out from under him.

Good luck getting him to admit it if he did.

He has said repeatedly that he took the job this summer knowing this mass exodus could come.

“I understand what they are doing and I knew it was going to come to that,” he said. “It’s great that Jack and Max and Laff and Caber are going to have a chance to play in the playoffs. … We’ve created good relations with all those players, that if there’s a chance to ever bring them back, I think they’re going to feel good about that, and that would be open, both sides.

“But I think the assets that we got are the priority right now.”

As for Davidson, he’s taken some big swings, sacrificed some huge names, and if it doesn’t pay off at the end, the blowback could be monumental.

“I’ve experienced a lot of pretty big moments early in my career,” he said during his trade deadline wrap-up. “Coaching change, coaching search, trading a franchise legend, trading a lot of well-known fan favorite players. They’re not easy things and there’s a lot of heat that comes with it at times, and you learn a lot about yourself, about how dedicated and how much you believe in your plan and in your vision. …

“I’m a year in, I’m 34 years old (and) I’ve got a lot to learn,” he said. “But I have a pretty strong opinion and strong belief in myself, in what we’re doing here, and that we are on the right path.”