NEWSLETTER
Last night, Kirby Dach returned to the Chicago Blackhawks lineup nearly three months to the day after having surgery to repair a broken wrist suffered during the World Junior Championships. After originally being given a four-to-five month timeframe for recovery, Dach was already reportedly ahead of his recovery schedule as early as three weeks ago. He began skating again with the team earlier this month and rapidly took on more and more during those skates.
He returned on Saturday night in the 3-1 loss for the Blackhawks to the Nashville Predators. Dach played 20:08 minutes in his first true game since Chicago’s 2020 postseason run over the summer. While he wasn’t on the scoresheet, Dach looked like he was one of the best players for Chicago on the ice last night. He looked ready to go.
Dach says during the intermission report that the decision for him to return was made two days ago. Said he is still feeling discomfort, but it's not enough that he can't push through.#Blackhawks
— Bleacher Nation Blackhawks (@BN_Blackhawks) March 28, 2021
These comments during the first intermission seemed to set-off Blackhawks fans last night. Questions of “why is he playing if he feels discomfort?!” “Why is he playing when they aren’t going to win anything?!” “Who let him play if he’s not ready?!” “Fire Bowman!”
You get the picture.
Look, Dach is a 20-year-old kid. He’s an elite athlete with access to physical therapy none of us have probably never experienced. He’s a professional hockey player. He wants to play. I don’t fault him for wanting to get back on the ice as fast as he could. If he says he can play at the level he wants to be able to play at, who are the coaches and staff to hold him back if he also has the doctors signing off on his return?
Dach: "I’m not going to change anything from the way I played before. I’m still going to play hard and do those types of things. I’m not going to shy away from contact."
— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) March 28, 2021
There’s always risk in life and in sports. It’s there any and every time any player steps on the ice, whether it’s a preseason game, postseason game, Junior tournament, or a practice. It’s a high-speed, physical sport played on ice with knives strapped to your feet at 20MPH. Things happen all the time and if Dach is able to come back ahead of schedule, why keep him out? He’s cleared and the Blackhawks could use him in a big way.
Kirby Dach:
"Those are your teammates, your brother hood in that room, so any time you're losing a player to an injury it's never fun to see and you're always happy to see them back. I was welcomed back with some jokes and stuff like that. It was good to be on the team again."— John Dietz (@johndietzdh) March 28, 2021
Chicago is in the middle of a playoff race in a season where they didn’t expect to be playing for much. There are plenty of meaningful games to be played down the stretch of the season and Dach’s return serves as a pseudo-acquisition for the Blackhawks during NHL trade deadline crunch time. According to Dach, his mindset wasn’t a matter of if he would return this season, but when.
Kirby Dach: "I never had no doubts in my mind that I was gonna play (this season)."
— Mark Lazerus (@MarkLazerus) March 28, 2021
He’s coming back at the perfect time for the Blackhawks to get him up to game speed and throw him right into the thick of it. He played the third-most minutes of any forward in last night’s game, and he’ll likely trail behind Patrick Kane and Alex DeBrincat from here on out in minutes per game as Chicago fights for their postseason lives. The hope is that he can hit the ground running and build off the form that we saw from him during the 2020 postseason where he tallied six points in nine playoff games. If that version of Kirby Dach can reappear for the Blackhawks, they’re in a much better spot than they were in the first 34 games of the season.
