On Monday, forwards Zach Sanford and Brett Seney cleared waivers and were assigned to Rockford. The Blackhawks also released goaltender Mitchell Weeks from his PTO and assigned him to Rockford. That puts the training camp roster at 32 — which includes injured goaltender Laurent Brossoit, rookie defenseman Artyom Levshunov (skating, not playing) and Wyatt Kaiser (working out in a gym somewhere and hasn’t been seen in one full week). Richardson did not have an update for us regarding Kaiser on Monday.
- Yesterday Blackhawks defensemen Alec Martinez, TJ Brodie and Nolan Allan were in black jerseys like the rest of the blue line but not skating with what appears to be the game group for tonight.
- Teuvo Teräväinen, Ryan Donato, Joey Anderson and Frank Nazar were wearing green Blackhawks practice jerseys. Donato, Anderson and Nazar were practicing on the second sheet with Martinez, Brodie and Allan. Teräväinen made a celebrity guest appearance later in practice.
- Here are the power play units we saw at practice on Monday morning (again, with a grain of salt because these are for the game tonight, not Game 1 of the regular season necessarily):
- There were IceHogs on ice on Monday.
- Speaking of Rockford, they could have more than two decent/viable options between the pipes this year with Arvid Söderblom joining Drew Commesso. Ben Gaudreau looked good in camp as well. While Söderblom is still relatively young in his North American hockey career and was on the NHL roster for all of last year, IceHogs head coach Anders Sorensen indicated on Monday that the top spot on the depth chart belongs to Commesso.
- This isn’t terribly surprising because Commesso has been expected to be the next developed goalie to move up to the NHL at some point. But Söderblom is really in a tough spot after a hard year in the NHL in which he struggled (behind a poor defensive team).
- You know what’s almost as exciting as the preseason ending for the Blackhawks? Preseason games starting for their college prospects. The Gophers — including Blackhawks prospects Oliver Moore and Sam Rinzel — play their first exhibition game on Saturday night against St. Cloud State. Love to see it.
- There was an absolutely surreal press conference in Boston yesterday in which:
- Cam Neely basically told the world the Bruins had offered RFA goaltender Jeremy Swayman $8M per for 8 years,
- head coach Jim Montgomery named Joonas Korpisalo, his should-be backup, the opening night starter,
- Neely doubled-down on his/their disappointment that Swayman isn’t in camp yet, and
- the team’s CEO said they have no problem spending money.
- Nothing helps negotiations along quite like a 4-on-None throwing under the bus session, eh?
- Swayman’s agent released a statement later in the day and this looks like it’s going to get awfully awkward before it’s any better…
- The NHL will honor Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau across the league until Oct. 24 with helmet decals for every player. This is still heartbreaking.
- Finally, sports obituaries had a day on Monday. In the late afternoon, Pete Rose passed away. Earlier in the day we learned that basketball Hall of Famer Dikembe Mutumbo lost his battle with brain cancer. Two remarkable individuals with tremendous careers in their respective careers. Mutumbo’s life and legacy are not nearly as complicated at Rose’s, but there are fans grieving all over the sports world still today.