Blackhawks Activate Zaitsev, Recall Bjork and Send 3 To Rockford

We’ve talked about this for a couple days, but the Blackhawks announced their first transaction of the trade deadline day.

Chicago announced they have activated defenseman Nikita Zaitsev from the non-roster list (immigration) and recalled forward Anders Bjork (acquired yesterday from Buffalo).

The Blackhawks also assigned forwards Brett Seney and David Gust and defenseman Isaak Phillips to Rockford.

As I noted in this morning’s bullets, players need to be on the AHL roster at the 2 PM CT trade deadline to be eligible to play in the AHL playoffs.

So we’re going to wait and see if/when Lukas Reichel gets sent down at some point today as well. The assumption is that he will — likely after the NHL club practices this morning at 11:30 — because head coach Luke Richardson said on Thursday that the plan was still for Reichel to get AHL playoff reps this year.

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Tab Bamford has been writing about the Chicago Blackhawks for almost two decades. He joined Bleacher Nation as the lead Blackhawks writer in May 2022. Tab is a member of the Professional Hockey Writers Association and is the author of two books about the Blackhawks: "100 Things Blackhawks Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die" (Triumph Books) and "Chicago Blackhawks: An Illustrated Timeline" (Reedy Press, 2021). Find him on Twitter/X/Instagram/Threads at @The1Tab

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