CHICAGO — At the start of the season, defenseman Xavier Villeneuve was ranked the fourth-best prospect in the 2026 draft by The Athletic’s Corey Pronman: a tantalizing, point-a-game offensive dynamo who frequently earned comparisons to Lane Hutson. In that same ranking, winger Ryan Roobroeck came in at 14th overall, a bruising power forward coming off a 41-goal, 46-assist season in the Ontario Hockey League.They saw their stock fall significantly over the course of the 2025-26 season. But Villeneuve’s skill and skating are still there. Roobroeck’s power and finishing ability are still there. The risk exists, but so does the potential reward. And when you have The Athletic’s top-ranked prospect pipeline, loaded with young players who are already either in the NHL or knocking on the door, you can afford to take a couple of big swings.So the Blackhawks took both Villeneuve and Roobroeck in Saturday’s NHL Draft — 34th and 35th overall, after moving up two slots to select Roobroeck — landing first-round talent early in the second round.“It likely speaks to how we feel about the players we’ve got in the system and how they’ve progressed,” Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson said. “The fact that we can take a look at some of these guys that do have that high upside and that really desirable possibility of what they could be. I don’t necessarily know if they’re boom-or-bust guys in our eyes, but they are certainly high-upside players that we really like.”Villeneuve hopes to be a Hutson-like player on the back end, while Roobroeck listed Leon Draisaitl and Mikko Rantanen as players he tries to emulate. (“I’m like Brad Pitt,” quipped Blackhawks scouting director Mike Doneghey in response.) Roobroeck was considered for rare “exceptional status” in the OHL as a 15-year-old, but ultimately was denied. But it’s a sign of just how long he’s been on NHL teams’ radar as a top prospect in the 2026 pool.Drafting the wrong undersized defensemen from 2016 to 2018 contributed to where the Blackhawks are today. During that span, the Blackhawks took Chad Krys, Henri Jokiharju, Ian Mitchell, Adam Boqvist and Nicolas Beaudin, who were all 6-foot-0 or shorter, either in the first or second round with the hopes of them being future top-four defensemen. Today, only Jokiharju is still under contract in the NHL.Under Davidson, the Blackhawks had gone the opposite route. All six of the defensemen he drafted in his first four years were 6-1 or taller. On Saturday, he broke from that trend and took Villeneuve.“I just think the dynamic offense, the skating,” Davidson said when asked how Villeneuve might be different. “He has a lot of traits that are required of a smaller defenseman to work moving forward and so that certainly played into it.”Villeneuve also won Davidson over off the ice.“Honestly for me personally, he was just one of those guys, too, that really popped for me when I met him in person,” Davidson said. “I love the passion he spoke with when he talked about the game, how he talked about the game, even just knowing about the league. You can tell he loves the game and loves the sport. I just felt the passion oozing out of him, that gives you a good belief that he’s going to do everything possible in his power to become the player he can be.“It’s a whole package, there’s a holistic aspect to that. But from a hockey standpoint, the offense and the skating is one that you need to see from a defenseman of his size to have a good feeling that they’ll be able to make it moving forward.”If Villeneuve were just an inch or two taller, he might have gone a lot earlier (and for what it’s worth, he thinks he might not be done growing). Does an inch or two really make that much of a difference, or is that 6-0 mark a psychological barrier for scouts and GMs?“(Shayne) Gostisbehere is not that big and he just won the Stanley Cup,” Doneghey said. “You can’t have six (short defensemen), but we felt with (all the big defensemen) we do have … And for these guys, it’s three to five years. You don’t know what our team is going to look like then, or if he’s going to get to 6-1. But that was one of the things Kyle brought up after our January meetings. He’s like, ‘I hear everything about this kid, and the only downfall is he’s 5-11. What if he’s 6-1?’ Well, he’s probably top of class, like he’s in that top-10 skill set with all the guys who went (Friday) night. But that’s how this league is.”Not that it matters now, the Blackhawks would have drafted defenseman Chase Reid if they had kept the No. 4 overall pick. If Ivar Stenberg and Reid had been gone, they were considering trading down.The Blackhawks may not have drafted Reid, but there is some similarity to his draft projection and Villeneuve’s. In Byron Bader’s NHLe projection model, Reid and Villeneuve both had the 10th-highest probability among all 2026 eligible players to become full-time NHLers. Both are at 78 percent. Bader’s model also projects potential value in Roobroeck.With the 2026 draft behind them, the Blackhawks now sit in an enviable position with three first-round picks in the next draft. Davidson was able to turn the No. 4 pick in this draft into defenseman Bowen Byram. Can he turn some combination of those three 2027 first-rounders — or all three — into Jason Robertson? Or even Zach Werenski?Without getting into specifics, Davidson didn’t rule anything out.“We’re definitely looking to make some stuff happen,” he said. “Again, I stand up here a lot and say I’m open to it. Again, it’s got to make sense, fit for both sides, and you got to accomplish (something) for the other team as well. So we continue to have those discussions. We do have a lot of good assets. I think we’ve showed we’ve kind of taken a different route where we’re not afraid to use some of these high-value assets to bring in some players who we think can be with us for a long time.”Strictly futures likely won’t be enough to land someone like Robertson, who was almost traded to Seattle before he turned down a contract-extension offer with the Kraken. The Dallas Stars are still trying to re-sign Robertson, but if they can’t, they’re still in the middle of their championship window and will be looking for win-now players in a potential trade. The Minnesota Wild had to include Marco Rossi and Zeev Buium to pry Quinn Hughes from the Vancouver Canucks, and Dallas had to part with Logan Stankoven to get Rantanen from the Carolina Hurricanes. In Blackhawks terms, that could equate to someone like Frank Nazar, Oliver Moore or perhaps Artyom Levshunov.Is Davidson prepared to deal away a high-upside player in whom he’s invested so much time and development? A player he’s grown fond of?“There’s always an emotional component to it, right?” he said. “You believe in these players. You draft them for a reason, you develop them and you see the path for them to become really good players for you in the NHL. I think (with) that time and energy, naturally, you build an affinity towards these people as players and people. It is tough sometimes that you have to make those decisions. Having said that … you have to give up something good to get that. That’s just part of the business. I don’t think you can let that hold you in place and freeze you. But it’s certainly in play. It shouldn’t stop you from doing anything either.”Here are Doneghey’s capsule scouting reports on the Blackhawks’ other three draft picks.Samu Alalauri, Finnish right-shot defenseman, heading to UMass next season: “He’s been to all the U-18 tournaments, power-play guy. It was him and (Juha) Piiparinen, they’re kind of the two go-to defensemen on Finland at all the events. We really liked this guy at the Ivan Hlinka tournament. He just kept getting better and better, and he meets our traits — he’s 6-3, he’s a right shot, so there’s value there. He can skate all day, he can handle a puck.”Alexander Ivanov, Russian left-shot defenseman: “We had him actually really high. But you never know with the Russians, just because everything’s on video. He’s not a (Dan) Milstein client, so he wasn’t in Florida last weekend. But he’s 6-3, he’s a left shot. The luxury of those guys that we saw with Roman (Kantserov), you can leave them over there and hope they develop and they get in the right situations. He’ll start with exhibition games in the KHL and then it’s on him whether he’s in the KHL (or) VHL, but we have time with him. It could be three years, four years, depending on what goes on with contracts and stuff like that. I think he has two years left on a KHL contract.”William Sörbrand, Swedish winger: “(Chief European scout) Mats Hallin was very passionate about this kid. He’s 6-4, he can skate, he plays heavy. Secondary skill. Like, he’ll chip pucks in from the net-front, but he’s strong along the boards and can really skate. And he has a physical element to him.”Blackhawks fans had seen enough of André Burakovsky in a top-six role long ago. Davidson came to a similar conclusion as he began projecting next season’s lineup and traded Burakovsky to the Ottawa Senators for a 2027 sixth-round pick.“With the emergence of some of your young players and Roman Kantserov coming over, just felt like there was a more difficult road to a meaningful role for André,” Davidson said. “So gave Burky a start somewhere else. He was a great person, I’m happy we had him. He was awesome around the room. He was great with the group, so we wish him nothing but the best.”