Blackhawks fans will have a group to cry with, it appears. The Calgary Flames are having a brutal couple of weeks and could be looking to retool after winning their division this past season. Not much is going on in Chicago (last time we said that we regretted it), but let’s take a look at the news around the NHL.
Two current Blackhawks, Taylor Raddysh and Boris Katchouk, were members of Canada’s gold medal-winning 2018 World Junior team that is now being scrutinized in a sexual assault investigation. Raddysh posted a comment on his own behalf on Twitter on Tuesday night.
The crew at JFresh did a poll to determine how fans felt about NHL logos. Chicago ranked 23rd in their poll of over 3,500 fans. To clarify: This is based on the logo and not the uniforms.
What shouldn’t come as a surprise to many Blackhawks fans, their logo was polarizing in the vote. In fact, the most polarizing. According to the poll results, fans were either completely in love with the Hawks’ look or hated it.
On Wednesday morning, Johnny Gaudreau penned a lovely Dear John letter to the fans in Calgary for The Players’ Tribune. “It’s not you, it’s me,” he said (probably).
Adding to the hurt in Calgary are growing rumors that their other superstar forward, Matthew Tkachuk, wants out. Tkachuk, 24, is a restricted free agent and the Flames were scared enough by the potential of an offer sheet that the organization filed for arbitration to keep that from happening. This morning we discussed how a trade could impact the Blackhawks’ future. And no, he isn’t coming to Chicago.
The crew at The Athletic broke down the biggest needs for every NHL franchise as we get closer to the end of July. They only listed two for the Blackhawks: offense and a new color commentator.
Mark Lazerus eviscerated the decision to let Eddie Olczyk go when writing about the need to replace Edzo in the booth.
Now they need to find a new voice to try to build some enthusiasm among fans for the young players in the system. Can Patrick Sharp do that? Adam Burish? Anyone? Big shoes to fill, but right now, it’s the most important job opening in the organization (and the only one the tanking team will actually try to fill).
We asked you who the choice would be to fill those shoes, and the overwhelming majority asked for Sharpie to take the seat.
In case you missed it, yesterday USA Hockey added Blackhawks prospect Aidan Thompson to their World Junior Evaluation Camp roster. Chicago could be well represented on the US roster at the WJC tournament in a couple of weeks.
The Blackhawks shared a video of a mic’d up Kendall Coyne Schofield on the ice during development camp. The Hawks are fortunate to have her involved with the organization and the prospects undoubtedly learned a lot from a player with such a successful resume.
Finally, we know why the Blackhawks picked almost exclusively forwards in this year’s draft. But why did the Cubs take so many pitchers this past weekend in their draft class?
NEWSLETTER
