Marian Hossa Is Officially Getting His Number Retired, Which Should Mean That ALL Of The Numbers Get Retired From The Dynasty

Very cool moment last night. Marian Hossa is going to have his #81 hanging forever from the United Center rafters. Much deserved in my opinion. It is an abomination that the marketing department made it seem like this was going to be a special Marian Hossa night and then he shared an equal amount of camera time with the cast of Love Is Blind as they announce a 2022-23 Marian Hossa night on the day they asked season ticket holders for another deposit towards next year's last place team. That is neither here nor there though. The question is who else deserves to have their number retired by the Blackhawks

Right now in the rafters:

#1 Glenn Hall

#3 Pierre Pilote

#3 Keith Magnusson

#9 Bobby Hull

#18 Denis Savard

#21 Stan Mikita

#35 Tony Esposito

#81 Marian Hossa

Now, if Hossa is up there then it is safe to assume that 2, 19, and 88 are automatic. I would give those three a statue as they are the three best, most successful, and most important players in the history of the organization. 

There is definitely a debate or even a campaign amongst the Gen X Blackhawks fans for Steve Larmer and to a lesser extent (at least from my vantage point) Doug Wilson. I can't say that I really remember either of those two players, but I feel like the ferver should be flipped. Wilson is in the Hall of Fame as of 2020. He won the Norris in 1982. He was an all-star for basically a decade. All-time leader for points and goals for the Blackhawks. Finalist for the Norris two other times. If Wilson is good enough to be in the Hall of Fame he should be good enough to have his number retired, in my opinion. 

There's also a debate about what to do with Chelios and Roenick as the stars of the 90s here. Things ended badly here for both of them. Chelios' accomplishments and birth certificate to me make him a lock. He has been brought back into the organization in an official capacity so whatever bad blood there was with previous generations of the Wirtz family have clearly been squashed. Chelios is a top 10 player ever for the organization and served the organization proudly when he was here. He is also the best player ever to wear #7 here so it'd be odd in a way if he wasn't in the rafters and Seabrook was. 

Roenick...I don't know. Borderline. Something tells me that if they had plans to bring him back they wouldn't be giving Reichel #27. 

Which brings us up to the modern era...put them all in. Here is the list of retired numbers when it is all said and done if it were up to me

#1--Glen Hall

#2--Duncan Keith

#3--Pierre Pilote

#3--Keith Magnusson

#4--Nik Hjalmarsson

#7--Chris Chelios

#7--Brent Seabrook

#9--Bobby Hull

#10--Patrick Sharp

#18--Denis Savard

#19--Jonathan Toews

#21--Stan Mikita

#24--Doug Wilson

#35--Tony Esposito

#81--Marian Hossa

#88--Patrick Kane

That's right. Put them all up there forever. The Blackhawks have been around for 100 years. Truly great teams and truly great players are so rare. The likelihood of this organization ever winning 3 in 6 again is slim to none. If you were a fixture on all of those teams you deserve to be memorialized forever. Sharp was so important to this organization's transformation. Hyper competitive and helped change the culture of the team before 19, 88, 81, arrived. Patrick Sharp had 532 points as a Blackhawk. Hossa had 415. Hossa's free agent signing definitely helped change the perception of the Blackhawks organization, Patrick Sharp helped change the reality. If Hossa is in, so is Sharp. 

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When you close your eyes and think about about the run you can't do it without Seabrook moments. They don't win 3 in 6 without Seabrook. The leadership, the clutch moments, the stretch passes, the blocked shots, the simple plays, the PP bombs. He absolutely deserves to be up there. And if Seabs is in then so is Hjalmarsson. Hjalmarsson was arguably the best defensive dman of his era. A human eraser. Difficult to play against. Appeared out of nowhere like a ghost a lot of times to break up plays. Tough as nails without having to fight or even hit that often. If the Norris Trophy didn't turn into an offensive award, Hjalmarsson would have some hardware on his mantle. He was iron. 

I understand people pushing back like this guy on twitter

I don't see it that way. I think all of those guys above truly deserve it. 19, 88, and 2 deserve to have a statue at some point to differentiate them and put them in the same class as Hull and Mikita. And as I have said above...great players are rare. Even if you look at this team right now there is nobody besides 19 and 88 who will for sure have their number retired. Debrincat is a candidate, but he has zero playoff series wins under his belt and there is no reason to believe for sure that he will be with the Blackhawks beyond his current contract that ends in 2023. So if it isn't going to be Debrincat, then I think it is safe to say that we are looking at no numbers being retired after this stretch until at least 2040. So...who cares? Celebrate the good times. Honor the great ones. There's plenty of ceiling space up there. They all deserve it.