Only one more sleep until we have a Blackhawks preseason game! Being that the game is at home, I think most of us are assuming Connor Bedard will be on the ice Thursday night when the Blues visit town. He’s talked about just wanting to play hockey since he got here in… early July. Thursday will be the first chance for Bedard to (again, probably) skate against NHL players who won’t eventually be his teammate. Yeah, there was the prospect showcase in Minnesota, but Thursday night is a legit NHL preseason game. That’s exciting. And, based on what he’s done both in the prospect showcase game and two scrimmages against his teammates this week, we should be wanting him to play in a game as much as he is because Bedard has shown flashes of why people have used the word “generational” frequently/consistently when talking about him. This pass yesterday? Ridiculous.
Taylor Hall had some really good things to say about Bedard when speaking with Ben Pope on Tuesday. ‘‘If he can round his game at center into a guy that’s dependable defensively and then obviously adds what he adds offensively, he’s going to be one of the best players in the league.’’
Last week, College Hockey News released their rankings. On Tuesday afternoon, USCHO released their preseason college rankings. And once again, the Blackhawks are incredibly well represented. Chicago has prospects at Nos. 1, 3, 4, 5, 8, 17, 18 and 20.
I give you a couple nuggets on Bedard and prospects we haven’t seen in Chicago for the past few weeks because they’re in college because ESPN dropped a piece on Tuesday titled “” Here’s how it worked:
These rankings consider how teams are set up for success this season as well as the next three seasons. We had a panel of writers and editors rate each team in four categories — roster (with an emphasis on players 26 and under); prospects; cap situation and contracts; and front office, ownership and coaching.
They ranked the Blackhawks 18th in the NHL. The Blackhawks ranked first overall in prospects and second overall in cap/contracts, but ESPN ranked the Blackhawks’ current roster 31st in the league and the Blackhawks’ owner/GM/coach ranked just 27th.
I am going to respectfully throw my challenge flag here on the Blackhawks being ranked that low on the GM/Coach component. If we all admit the Blackhawks — in spite of their record — overachieved for Luke Richardson last year, what will more talent/skill do this year? And if we all agree the whole point of a rebuild is to acquire elite talent, is there a more elite prospect than Bedard? I’ll accept that this is specifically targeting the next immediate four years… but by Years 3-4 of that window I would argue the Blackhawks’ entire roster outside of Bedard, Lukas Reichel, Wyatt Kaiser and Alex Vlasic will have turned over (maybe Seth Jones is still here?) and the top-ranked talent pipeline will be filling in the NHL roster around Bedard. If we focus exclusively on this year’s roster, it isn’t worth scheduling the parade. But when you consider the cap flexibility the Blackhawks have and the talent they have coming, having them remaining an outside-the-playoffs team by Year Four of this project’s timeline feels like it’s missing something.
Now, a moment of comic relief from a guy who is obviously going to be one of the favorites on this roster, Nick Foligno.
I thought I’d put the light-hearted moment from yesterday in here before this piece from Mark Lazerus at The Athletic. It’s a good one focusing on some of the guys we’ve talked about in this space over the past few weeks who are fighting for a roster spot — if there’s one to fight for at this point.
“You don’t have to be a genius to know there are a lot of forwards here,” MacKenzie Entwistle 🌠told Lazerus. “You count the numbers and there are ဣa couple of us fighting for some spots.”
Injuries are starting to crop up around the NHL as teams play their preseason games… something that feels like it’s taken forever for the Blackhawks to get to this training camp. When a fairly significant one like Joel Edmundson missing 4-6 weeks (meaning 2-4 to start the regular season), there becomes an opportunity for either someone in that organization to win a spot for a month or… a trade. And, again, the Blackhawks have a lot of potentially extra pieces laying around on inexpensive contracts that might make sense in some of these situations.
Cory Schneider had a heck of a career, but that came to an end on Tuesday when he announced his retirement. I just wanted to show the guy a little respect because he didn’t get a lot of it during his career but he was a fine netminder.
Finally, away from the rink things are… not good in Chicago right now for sports fans. So let’s find some kinda silver lining eh?
