More Prospect Talk, Another Top 20 Without the Hawks, Chicago’s the Second City (to Visit), and Other Blackhawks Bullets

Welcome to the final week (well, half week) of August. September begins this week, which means we’re that much closer to training camp opening and hockey being back on our televisions. Which is awesome, because we can’t wait for there to be some action on the ice.

  • Monday morning, Corey Pronman at The Athletic ranked the top 170 NHL players and prospects under age 23. Four Blackhawks made his list: Lukas Reichel (28), Frank Nazar (94), Kevin Korchinski (128), and Philipp Kurashev (135).
  • Pronman continues to be higher on Kurashev than we are after watching him for more than one season in Chicago. With the departures this season and him playing on a one-year deal, we’ll be interested to see how the new coaching staff uses Kurashev in the coming year.
  • It’s good to see the Blackhawks’ top two picks in the 2022 NHL Draft on the list. And the more we read about Frank Nazar the more excited we are to watch him at Michigan this season.
  • The Canadian Hockey League shared a pipeline breakdown of the Blackhawks’ nine prospects skating in their leagues. Six of the nine players on the list have already signed their entry-level contracts, and four were 2022 selections. Their pipeline covers players “who played in 2021-22, who were born in 2001 or later, and are signed by or on the reserve list of an NHL club.”
  • The NHL Network dropped their top 20 defensemen in the league entering the coming season. Zero Blackhawks made their rankings. Would you make an argument for Seth Jones to make the top 20?
  • We might consider making a case for Jones to be in the mix given the injury issues in recent seasons for Drew Doughty and Brent Burns was traded to Carolina this summer, so we’ll be watching how he fits there as well.
  • According to The Athletic, Chicago is the second-best city for a visiting NHL fan to spend a few days in. Nashville was in the top spot. Maybe they’ll raise a banner for this, too.
  • If a prospect signs with the Blackhawks but is in the AHL, they’re still part of the NHLPA. That hasn’t been the case for Major League Baseball. But the MLBPA is taking drastic steps on Monday to change that. This is long overdue. We’ve got the analysis for you.
  • written by

    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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