On Tuesday, the Chicago Blackhawks were able to wrap up the trade they made on Monday with a marvelous veteran signing. Nick Foligno, he of the 17-year NHL career who was acquired with Taylor Hall♌ from the Bruins, signed a one-year, $4 million deal to hang around Chicago for a while.
When I wrote about Hall being a perfect fit for this coming season’s Blackhawks on Monday, I included some of my thoughts on Foligno being a marvelous addition to the roster as well — if the Blackhawks could get a deal done with him. He’s been through a lot in the NHL; he’s a second generation player and gets it in every possible way. And he’s one of the most respected players in the entire league.
What about Foligno on the ice?
At this point, after 1,081 regular-season games, is there anything left in the tank or are the Blackh♒awks paying ⛄him $4 million to be another assistant coach?
Last year, Foligno skated 12:22 per game in 60 contests for the Bruins. That’s a fourth-line role. While doing that, he scored 10 goals last season.
The Blackhawks only had eight players score 10 goals for the team last year. And four of them are no longer with the organization, meaning Foligno and Hall wil𝐆l join an offense led by Taylor Raddysh and Andreas Athanasiou (20 goals each), Tyler Johnson and Seth Jones (12 each).
Foligno was also credited with 147 hits last season — again, in under 13 minutes of ice time in just 60 games. Only Reese Johnson (178 in 57 games) and Connor Murphy (165 in 80 games) had more hits for Chicago last season. So he’s bringing a more physical edge to the roster.
Special teams? Foligno averaged 1:23 per game on the power play. Which means a player who was on a good power play (Boston converted 22.2 percent of the time last year — 12th in the league) will join a team that had the 28th-ranked power play unit in the league last year.
Raise the bar, folks. It’s about raising the bar. And Foligno is going to help do that in small ways in a number of areas.
Getting to the Floor
The $4 million AAV on Foligno’s deal is big enough that it likely swayed him into joining a rebuilding team for a single season — or part of one — as much as working with a coaching staff like the one Luke Richardson has assembled in Chicago.
It also helps the Blackhawks not have to take on bad deals any more to get to the salary floor. No more “hey, sure, we’ll take Nikita Zaitsev off your hands for the low, low cost of a second-round pick!” type trades are necessary.
According to , the Blackhawks are now just a hair under $59 million in committed cap space to 18 players (when we promote Lukas Reichel ($925,000) and Arvid Söderblom ($96𝓡2,500) to the NHL roster). That roster has🐠 12 forwards, four defensemen and two goaltenders.
So the Blackhawks need to spend roughly $3-5 million more dollars to reach the floor. They will add Connor Bedard‘s entry-level contract at some point soon, and they’re expected to get a new deal done with RFA forward Philipp Kurashev at some point as well.
So the Blackhawks need to add two defensemen at around $1 million each. ✤Got it.
The floor will happen. The money isn’t a problem in Chicago.
Filling a leadership void was a potential issue. Foligno takes care of that and checks other necessary boxes as we🌄ll.
