Chicago Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson chatted with the media to open the 2023-24 season on Tuesday morning. Among the larger, macro topics he covered were the news that the Blackhawks will not have a captain this year and the rebuild being more settled and showing more positive forward/upward direction heading into the n☂ew year.
But there was a l🐓ot of talk about the roster and the players who will be in Chicago this year. And Davidson offered some insight into their hopes and goals for the c🌱oming season.
A few notes abo𝓡u💖t the roster for the coming season:
” Lukas Reichel did everything we asked of him last year in terms of the little things we asked him to improve on, and to the point at the end of the year, and as we walk into training camp this year, he’s an NHL ready player. Those are the steps you want your young players to take.”
“It’s been incredibly impressive. The amount of attention, expectation, not just now but in the past, has been something that is rarely seen. I can’t speak more highly of how he’s handled it, how he’s not let it impact his focus and what he thinks is important and the work he needs to put in, both on and off the ice, to perform at the level he expects of himself. Incredibly mature and impressive for an 18-year-old coming into a very unique situation.”
There was probably opportunity to go sign players in those spaces, but we’ve got up front, Lukas showed everything he needed to show in the AHL and he’s ready to take that step in the NHL and learn the NHL grind, learn the NHL game and we’ll give him that opportunity. On the back end, we’ve got a number of players, whether it’s [Alex] Vlasic, [Wyatt] Kaiser, [Kevin] Korchinski, Isaak Phillips, Filip Roos, there’s a bunch of players that are either ready or knocking on the door and we’ll leave it up to them to figure out who grabs those spots. There’s opportunities to fill those roles with players that are established NHLers. But in order to take the next step, we need some of these younger players to take the next step, as well. That’s very important for us to give them the opportunity. But amongst those players, there’s jobs to🦩 be won. And so we’ll see how that goes in training camp.
“There’s also a lot to be excited about and we’re going to filter in some very exciting young players this year that’ll give fans an eye to the future. Again, this is a journey, but we’re progressing along that journey right now and some of the young players that we’ll see in training camp and that we’ll see in the regular season this year will give an eye and a sneak peek to where we’re going on that journey. So I think there’s a lot to be excited about both at the NHL level and outside and we’re making progress very positive progress.”
