Hey the Chicago Blackhawks play a game at the United Center tonight! Well… a version of the Blackhawks that won’t be the group we see in Utah to open the regular season or on Nov. 17 when the Hawks open their home schedule against Macklin Celebrini and the Sharks. Some of the guys who play tonight will go back to junior. Some will be in Rockford. But there will indeed be a hockey game tonight. And that’s fun and awesome and all of the good things.
- A note from yesterday: Wyatt Kaiser did not practice. Head coach Luke Richardson said it was a maintenance day for the Blackhawks defenseman. It’s still early in training camp so no reason to push.
- More good signs on Wednesday morning: Artyom Levshunov was on the ice again working with Chris Kuntiz and others on some skating drills. He’s literally trying to get his feet back under him, and I will say from personally watching him that the progress is very encouraging.
- We’ll watch Kevin Korchinski skate with five NHL veterans on the blue line tonight. He’s fighting for a roster spot with Kaiser, among others. There’s a chance he spends some time in Rockford this season. As Mark Lazerus wrote, going to Rockford used to be a scarlet letter for prospects in Chicago; the organization didn’t value their AHL affiliate as a legitimate development step. That has changed dramatically under the current Blackhawks regime. And that’s a beautiful thing for Levshunov, Korchinski and the rest of the wave of defensemen coming soon.
- I shared the projected lineup for tonight’s Blackhawks preseason opener yesterday in my training camp notes. We also discussed the first round of “cuts” — read: players sent back to their junior teams — and we saw the No. 2 pick on the ice for the first time.
- For those of us still searching for options to watch the Blackhawks’ preseason games this weekend, the Red Wings will stream tonight’s game and Friday night’s game on their website. Tonight’s game will stream on the Hawks’ site as well. But an FYI for Friday night.
- Love me some Jason Dickinson, and Ben Pope wrote a nice story about how he’s looking to take his game to another level after blowing past all of his previous career bests last year. When you consider that captain Nick Foligno scored 17 goals last year, Dickinson scored a (tied for) team-leading 22 times and newcomer Ilya Mikheyev was a 20-goal guy a couple years ago and was on pace to do that again before an ACL injury during the 2022-23 season, is there a chance the Blackhawks’ third line (if this is what it stays, which is not written in stone…) combines to contribute 60 goals this year? That would be a massive contribution to a team that had only two guys reach the 20-goal mark last season (Dickinson and Connor Bedard).
- We haven’t talked much/at all about Joey Anderson fighting for a roster spot yet in camp because of teh flood of young guys and veteran additions stealing the attention. But he showed last year (again) that he’s an NHL-caliber player. The trouble: once again, he’s fighting uphill against what might be a deck stacked against him. Scott Powers wrote a nice piece about Anderson for Wednesday. I like his game a lot, but the numbers game is rough right now in the Blackhawks’ camp.
- This is fun. Landon Slaggert‘s big brother scored a goal for the Sabres last night.
- Finally, to our Bears crew… been there. Done that. And I’m sorry. But let’s all keep trucking and looking for those silver linings as things hopefully get better.