NEWSLETTER
Remember, back at the end of the regular season, when the media had a few minutes to chat with Blackhawks players and coaches about the 2023-24 campaign? And how Nick Foligno and Seth Jones put it out there that the team needed more “identity” pieces? And head coach Luke Richardson said the Blackhawks needed to consistently be tougher to play against?
Hello, free agency!
Here’s what Richardson said when he spoke with the media on Monday as the flurry of Blackhawks’ additions were still coming out. Though the team hasn’t confirmed everything yet, he didn’t have a problem talking about the guys who were reportedly signing to join the Blackhawks. And he likes the grit he’s going to have this coming season.
“You’ve got big guys who will get pucks like the Maroons, Bertuzzis, and we drafted guys like that for the future,” Richardson said. “Once we get it, we want to be fast — you’ve got the Teravainens that’s going to help us keep that puck even longer. I think that’s the plan, the longer the puck possession you have in this league the more you can do with it. It makes the other team frustrated and it takes them out of their game plan so that’s the way we want to play — fast and hard — and I think we definitely took a big step toward that today.
If we include the addition of Ilya Mikheyev via trade previously, the Blackhawks have now added five new, veteran forwards, a veteran defenseman and a veteran backup goalie. Seven new bodies to the mix means we’re going to see a bloated training camp roster, and Rockford is going to benefit from some longer time with the next generation.
Here are the contracts the Blackhawks signed on Monday:
Forwards
Defense
Goalie
And, again, as a reminder: Mikheyev has two years remaining on his contract of which the Blackhawks are responsible for a cap hit of $4,037,500.
Better Blackhawks = Better IceHogs
As the contracts continued to flood the twitter lists and email and text inboxes, I think many logical brains started pushing names like Nazar and Slaggert down the lineup until… we’re suddenly looking at more bodies than dressed roster spots available on the NHL roster.
Here’s Richardson talking about balancing the players on the NHL roster and having veterans playing the right way all the time with integrating younger players along the way:
It certainly feels like the Blackhawks are going to be incredibly intentional with making sure their prospects get enough time to really, truly develop and be really, truly ready for the NHL before they get a full-time call-up. They did everything they could to not call Alex Vlasic back up during his full season in Rockford, and he clearly benefitted from their commitment to that route. We’ll see if the same is true for Wyatt Kaiser and Ethan Del Mastro in the future.
But now it’s the forwards’ turn to spend time developing. And it’s nothing against what we saw from Landon Slaggert or Frank Nazar last year; Richardson complimented both on Monday. But the Blackhawks got hit over and over again by injuries last year and it forced the team to put some players in positions they shouldn’t have been, and then they started dumpster diving for waiver claims because it got so bad.
This coming season, the Blackhawks should have plenty of depth on the NHL roster to surround Connor Bedard. And enough bodies that a few injuries won’t force them to bring someone up too early.
More importantly, the specific veterans the Blackhawks are bringing in are going to continue to reinforce the culture being built by Richardson and his staff. How they expect the game to be played. And supporting young players when they struggle is also something that will be important from these new faces as well.
