Today makes it three days since the Blackhawks played a game, and they weren’t on the ice yesterday — even if Luke Richardson joked about maybe needing to lock the rink to keep his two teenagers off it on Tuesday. So let’s get caught up on a couple notes about the team, a couple defense prospects, and some news from the NHL’s GM meetings this week. We’ll hopefully find out more about Taylor Hall‘s availability for Thursday night’s game after practice later today.
In the 99 games he played with the Blackhawks between being traded to Chicago during the 2021-22 season and the end of last year, Taylor Raddysh skated exactly 60 seconds of short-handed ice time. Total. Through this past weekend, Raddysh has already skated 27:24 while killing penalties — which ranks third among Blackhawks forwards behind Jason Dickinson and Nick Foligno. After scoring 20 goals last year — his best season as an NHL player by far — it raised some eyebrows when Luke Richardson said Raddysh raised his hand and said he would be willing to help that unit this season back in training camp. Him playing an important role on a Blackhawks PK that’s 14th in the NHL has been a terrific added value from a guy with a $758,333 cap hit this season.
This is a fun read from Ben Pope. I’ve been focused on the terrific performances of some of the Blackhawks’ next wave of forwards recently, especially in the OHL with Nick Lardis, Gavin Hayes and Martin Misiak all off to good starts to their seasons. But Pope flipped the script and looked at the next wave on the blue line — specifically Nolan Allan and Ethan Del Mastro. They’re roommates off the ice and they’ve been skating together on it; Allan continues to play his off-side well. Allan had a terrific training camp, and Del Mastro did as well but not to the extent that there was a feeling he could be in the NHL this season as much as there was with Allan. They were teammates on Canada’s gold-medal winning World Junior team with Connor Bedard, Kevin Korchinski and Colton Dach and are continuing to develop rapport on the ice now in Rockford. I liked this quote from Del Mastro:
“Up in Chicago and down here [in Rockford], it’s kind of our identity to play fast. They want pucks moved up quick and into the forwards’ hands and everyone movinꦬg fast. They’ve been harping on it, and we’re trying to adapt and get used to it.”
Keep in mind these are two more big boys (Allan’s 6-2, Del Mastro’s 6-4) and they both play a physical game. I’ve talked for a while about wanting to see a Korchinski-Allan pair in Chicago eventually like they had in Seattle last season in the WHL. Del Mastro playing the left side might see him spend some time eventually with Wyatt Kaiser (who would be on his off-side as well). But having those two coming behind Alex Vlasic (6-7) is just another reminder that the Blackhawks are eventually going to have a BIG blue line.
Pierre LeBrun dumped a ton of info on us yesterday from the GM meetings. The first thing that grabbed my attention was, once again, talk that an implosion is coming in Calgary. If they are indeed looking to move on from some of their veterans, some of whom would likely need to have a conversation about an extension with an acquiring team to maximize the return value, there might be a time soon when the movement begins. Especially if teams are going to start trying to find a way to afford a certain right wing who is getting closer to a return…
As a Blackhawks fan, I would absolutely be interested in Elias Lindholm if the price — in terms of the trade and an extension — came in right. He’s a legit top-line center candidate who could immediately alleviate the pressure on Lukas Reichel to play in the middle and let him go back to the left side permanently. Having him in the mix for the next few years (assuming an extension) would also afford the team the ability to allow Frank Nazar, Oliver Moore, Ryan Greene, Aidan Thompson and other young centers to fully develop before making the jump to the NHL without pressure of having to be a top-six center immediately. And one one of them is ready to be the second-line center, having Lindholm as a third-line center would be a huge benefit.
From LeBrun’s conversation with NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly, “it’s been presented as an option to GMs to file no-trade lists to NHL Central Registry, and by the sound of it, there’s been a rather strong recommendation from the NHL that they do so.” In the wake of the Senators losing a first-round pick because they screwed this up sooo badly with Evgenii Dadonov, this would make sense. It sounds like the NHLPA has pushed back on the amount of information that’s registered with the league; they don’t want teams on a no-trade list to be leaked. But this could help teams avoid headaches in the future. We’ll see if it goes anywhere.
The market for Patrick Kane is heating up. I took some time to dig into the needs, wants and ability to afford 88 this morning. What do you think? Where will he land?
Police in England have made an arrest in association with the tragic death of Adam Johnson. Matt Petgrave was not named in the report, but he was the player whose skate blade cut Johnson on the ice.
This would be awesome. Give me a Saturday game between Detroit and Columbus followed by a Michigan vs. Ohio State game on Sunday!
Finally, good news for the Bears! Right…?
