"There are some things that we really need to fix that are going to take time," the 33-year-old said Tuesday. "We're not going to put a timeline on it. Whether it's three, five [years], I don't have that answer right now. That'll be determined as we proceed, but we really need to do this the right way. We're going to stick to the plan and take our time with it and make sure that, when we get to where we want to go, then it was the result of a plan that was stuck to and not deviated from."
The Blackhawks (19-27-8), who have qualified for the Stanley Cup Playoffs once in the past four seasons, are seventh in the eight-team Central Division and 15 points out of a playoff spot with 28 games remaining. They fired Jeremy Colliton as coach and replaced him with Derek King on Nov. 6 after starting the season 1-9-2.
Davidson took over as GM on Oct. 26 after Stan Bowman stepped down as president of hockey operations and GM. That followed an independent investigation of former forward Kyle Beach's allegations of sexual assault by then-video coach Brad Aldrich in 2010.
Davidson joined Chicago as a hockey operations intern in 2010 and has worked in a number of roles during his 12 seasons. In 2018, he was named assistant to the general manager, and last offseason he was promoted to assistant general manager of hockey administration.
"We have a vision here for the future of Blackhawks hockey and today we are a step closer to that coming together," Chicago CEO Danny Wirtz said. "As an organization, we know we have a lot of work to do on and off the ice, and Kyle is the leader we trust to oversee our hockey operations."
Wirtz said the Blackhawks have the time and patience to get where they want to be.
"Oftentimes, when teams get a little impatient is when the plan tends to short-circuit a little bit, then we lose more time," Wirtz said. "We're going to give him the time he needs. I know he's going to manage expectations as that plan becomes more secure.
"One of the advantages about our family being in this for four generations is we've seen some ups and downs in this franchise, we do have patience on our side built in. We're as anxious as anyone to see a winning team but we just want to do it the right way."
With the 2022 NHL Trade Deadline approaching March 21, Davidson said, "We'll just evaluate what's available to us. I don't think it's a secret where we are in the standings, so if there's opportunity to acquire some future talent and augment what we've got in prospect pool or our draft asset pool, then we'll explore that."
Davidson said he'll keep forwards Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane informed of the Blackhawks plans. Each has played his entire NHL career with Chicago and won the Stanley Cup in 2010, 2013 and 2015 (Toews, 14 seasons; Kane, 15 seasons).
"Jonathan and Patrick are extremely important pieces to the organization and they're definitely going to be brought into the loop," Davidson said. "I had a brief conversation with both of them this morning about some of the sentiments of today's announcement and what I would be talking about. That's going to be an ongoing discussion between myself and the players. I'll tell you for sure that there won't be any surprises on their end in terms of what we plan to do with the organization."
Former Blackhawks forwards Marian Hossa, Patrick Sharp and Eddie Olczyk were part of the advisory group that assisted in the GM search.
Davidson said that after he took over as GM he tried to prepare as if he'd remain in the job.
"Everything's been under review in my time here when I started as interim general manager," he said. "We'll continue to review how we operate in order to improve how we function off the ice as well as in the front office. We will never stop trying to improve, to innovate, and I promise stagnation won't be accepted while I'm the general manager here."
