This made me smile, so I’m leading off Thursday with it. When Blackhawks fans watch the game and see a young guy flying around in his first appearance of the season, there’s always a little bit of “am I thinking he’s having a really good time out there because I’m focused on him?” that happens. When you see the room after a really good, important win and a veteran like the Big Rig hands the belt to Landon Slaggert because his energy was contagious, that speaks volumes. You might hate how long it’s taking and you might not wanna wait much longer, but the early returns on the build plan have been inspiring thus far.
- Since Pat Maroon played a strong role in the video above, let’s stay on the Big Rig train this morning. He and Taylor Hall hopped on the Morning Cuppa Coffee podcast and talked about what was apparently a fairly chaotic situation around the Blackhawks’ lineup last Friday night when the Hawks were in the process of trading Hall. As a reminder: Hall was in the lineup — he was playing soccer in the hallway with the other guys who were skating — and the organization didn’t tell those of us in the press box that he wasn’t playing until just before the team took the ice to warm up about 30 minutes before puck drop. Maroon had to hop off the couch and get himself ready for a game pretty quickly.
- Again: credit where it’s due. Since his debacle of a performance against Calgary, Seth Jones is playing his best hockey of the season. He was terrific in Tampa on Tuesday night. Does that have anything to do with his name surfacing in trade rumors? Who knows. But with the Blackhawks skating 3-4 young players on a nightly basis, having dependable veterans playing good hockey is critical.
- Good stuff here from Ben Pope on Ryan Donato continuing to be an impact player this season for the Blackhawks. Again, if there’s a guy you want to have around young players like Slaggert and Nazar and Dach as they come into the NHL to see what it takes to get it done at the highest level every night, Donato is as good of an example as I can think of right now. I’m really happy for the guy because he’s genuinely a good dude who loves the game, comes from a hockey family and works his ass off. He could have easily been squeezed this summer when the Hawks added so many bodies but, like Arvid Söderblom in net, his work ethic and constant improvement changes the calculus.
- We are officially down to three potential names for the NHL club that resides in Utah. What’s your pick?
- It sounds now like John Klingberg might make his Oilers debut as soon as Thursday. Note: the Oilers are at the Blackhawks next Wednesday.
- The soap opera in St. Louis took another left turn on Wednesday when former Blackhawk Brandon Saad cleared waivers… was told he was headed to the AHL… and then agreed to walk away from roughly $5 million to get out of his contract and hit the open market. Saad will be a free agent as of 1 PM CT today.
- Still: no, the Blackhawks don’t need him.
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- NFL Insiders think the Bears will be players for free agent offensive linemen. Duh!
- It sounds like the opportunistic Cubs are still in the market — if the right deal becomes available.
- Apparently the Warriors are back in on Zach LaVine…