Why Blackhawks captain Nick Foligno is planting a garden he’ll likely never see bloom

Nick Foligno really wants to beat the Colorado Avalanche on Wednesday night. That’s it. That’s the goal. That’s priority No. 1. And if Sam Rinzel’s offensive instincts and Artyom Levshunov’s aggressiveness and Oliver Moore’s speed all help the Chicago Blackhawks beat the Avalanche, then he wants them on the ice. It’s not any more complicated than that.

Never mind the standings, never mind the rebuild, never mind the future, never mind the long game Chicago general manager Kyle Davidson is playing from up high. Just win a dang hockey game.

“We’re worried about winning games still,” Foligno said. “If these guys can come in and help, it’s awesome.”

Foligno lives in the present. He has to. At 37 years old, the Blackhawks captain doesn’t have the luxury of patience. It’s taken nearly three years for the first-round picks from the 2022 draft class — Kevin Korchinski, Frank Nazar and Rinzel — to play an NHL game together, and it could take three more years before they become the stars and franchise pillars Davidson hopes they’ll become. Foligno’s career, let alone his captaincy, could be over by then.

That’s the cold calculus of a long-term rebuild, and it’s math Foligno did long before he decided to sign a two-year, $9 million contract extension last year. His captaincy was always going to be a transition, a bridge from Chicago’s Jonathan Toews era to its Connor Bedard era. Foligno has thrown himself — mind, body and soul — into trying to build some semblance of a winning culture in a franchise that has shown precious little urgency to actually win. He’s always been the team’s biggest booster and he’s often been its disappointed dad, passionately laying out his vision for what these Blackhawks can be and doing everything he can to make it happen.

All while knowing he’s building the foundation of a house he’ll never get to live in, planting a garden he’ll never get to see bloom.

That was the job. That was the assignment. Foligno’s never pretended otherwise.

“Honestly, I’ve never looked at it like, ‘Oh, I’d love to be a part of this down the road,’” he said on Tuesday, in a locker room suddenly bursting at the seams with players nearly young enough to be Foligno’s sons. “I’m proud to be a part of this right now. I knew what I signed up for when I got here. Sometimes it’s heartbreaking and sometimes it’s frustrating, but then there’s the reward at the end. That’s what I want to make sure these young guys understand. If you’re not going to be a part of this, then you’re going to be kicking yourself watching a guy that you were sitting next to in the locker room that is a part of this, that’s enjoying the benefits of what’s to come. I think that’s a pretty powerful motivator.”

A powerful motivator for the likes of Wyatt Kaiser, Ethan Del Mastro and Louis Crevier, trying to prove they belong in the same breath — and on the same blue line — as the first-round picks Levshunov, Korchinski and Rinzel. A powerful motivator for Lukas Reichel, trying to carve out a role for himself after failing to entrench himself in the top six as a first-rounder. A powerful motivator for Arvid Söderblom, playing for a contract and the chance to be a long-term solution in goal alongside Spencer Knight.

But what motivates Foligno? What keeps pushing him to push them? Where does his seemingly boundless energy and optimism come from? How does he fight so hard for a “reward” he’ll likely never get? The fact is, Foligno has never won the Stanley Cup. He’s been past the first round only twice, and he’s never been in a conference final. The chances of him winning one in Chicago are infinitesimal. He’s one of the most popular players in the league and he can still play — he’s got 29 goals over the past two seasons — so he easily could have gone the well-trod way of the mercenary, Cup-chasing until his career ended.

Instead, he chose this. This mess, this interminable slog toward respectability. Why? Because playing a bit role on a contender can be rewarding. But playing a huge role in the lives of so many young players can be fulfilling.

So the Blackhawks’ late-season youth movement has Foligno as excited as anybody. When the season began, Chicago was the fifth-oldest team in the league. Bedard was the only player under 23 in its opening-night lineup. Against Colorado on Wednesday, there will be nine such players. And Foligno has pulled each one of them aside and explained to them what it means to play for the Chicago Blackhawks and what they have to do to stick around.

“Any time you’re going through a rebuild like we are, you have a certain set of players, and then you start to weed guys out and figure out who’s going to help us,” Foligno said. “It’s a natural progression. Another kid comes in, and he might look better than the one you have, and that’s just the reality. So you’ve got grab a hold of a spot. That’s a conversation we’ve had, just making sure you’re not letting an opportunity slip by, right? The reason guys stay in the league a long time is they’ve made themselves valuable. And you don’t want to wait too long, because there’s always another player coming. The NHL waits for nobody.

“This is the evolution, right? This is how we grow into the team we hope to become. But we’ve got to lay the groundwork. And that’s what I’m talking about with the culture and the identity — who are we?— so that when these guys come in, they already know this is what we’re supposed to be and we can work toward that. That’s starting right now. It’s the early stages, but it’s promising and it’s exciting to see. There are so many young players with opportunities in front of them. I’m thrilled for them.”

As the youngsters come in and establish themselves, Foligno’s role has diminished. He’ll be on the fourth line against Colorado, alongside Joe Veleno and Pat Maroon. Hardly the most exciting trio of the bunch. But you can be sure Foligno will be giving everything he has for however many minutes he gets. And you can be sure he’ll be in every video session, piping up with words of encouragement or wisdom. And you can be sure he’ll pull Moore aside with advice on how to win a board battle or pull Rinzel aside with a battle plan for when Nathan MacKinnon gets the puck and a head of steam in the neutral zone.

Foligno’s always on the job. He doesn’t know any other way. He’s fully invested in the Blackhawks’ future, whether he’s a part of it or not.

“Absolutely,” interim head coach Anders Sörensen said. “We have dialogue about it, and he’s mindful of it, and he really wants to help these young guys out. You can tell. I see it every day.”

The kids notice, too.

“You see him going out there and working hard, hitting guys, taking pucks to the net, everything he does for us,” Nazar said. “You see that and you’re like, man, this guy’s been doing it for how many years and he’s still this competitive and still wants it this bad, no matter where we’re at in the standings. It’s pretty awesome to see that.”

Of course, moments before saying that, Nazar was cracking on Foligno for being so old and out of touch with the pop-culture references of an increasingly young locker room. Foligno, naturally, can give it as well as he takes it. That’s all part of the job, too. The message: Whether you’re a 19-year-old rookie or a 37-year-old captain, you’re all just Blackhawks.

“There’s no hierarchy here,” Foligno said. “It’s making sure they’re comfortable, making sure they understand that they’re part of the fold here now. Just to break that barrier. It gives them a chance to realize hey, when we put the skates on, we’re all teammates and it doesn’t matter what age you are — I’m going to do the same job you’re doing and we’re going to try and do it the best we can.”

More nights than not, it hasn’t been enough. The Blackhawks have lost 53 of their 74 games this season. In the cold light of Hockey Reference, Foligno’s captaincy could go down as the least successful in a century of Blackhawks hockey. There’s no getting around that. It would have been easier, and maybe a little more fun, to just go Cup-chasing in the twilight of his career. Instant gratification and all. But those who were here, those who shared a locker room with Foligno, will know better. And so will Foligno.

If and when the Blackhawks are back on top of the league, Foligno’s name won’t be on the Stanley Cup. But his fingerprints will be all over it.

“I’d love to be here to reap the benefits, but it’s not about me at this point,” he said. “I’m not looking at it for myself. I’m looking at it for this group. And if it’s not with me around, I’m going to be pretty damn proud sitting back on my rocking chair watching this team go in the next few years, knowing that I had a small part in it.”

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