agreed. i don't want to lose any d-man, but, like you, i'm resigned to that fact. if vlasic played to his talent and physical levels, i'd be ok with giving murphy away. if i judged kaiser on last night's game, i'd waive him. has had strong games too...these guys are still young and inconsistent.

they may not make any move to resign kaiser and crevier...allow other clubs to offer them a contract, not match...and based on the money in the contract, they'd get draft compensation. will the draft picks be good ones? no..but, i believe these guys will give the club D depth at relatively lower salaries and help with spending money on FWDs, the next 2-3 years. you can't have guys like murphy and brodie earning over $8 million combined as 5th/6th or scratched d-men. kaiser and crevier combined, would likely cost the club 60% of that. GM kyle has to be smart.

smartest thing i ever heard olcyzk say: know your own players before other clubs know them.

game against las vegas tonight. knight given every opportunity to settle in and be the #1 G. korchinski in, crevier out. looks like nazar won't play with bedard. bedard playing with donato and mikheyev.

levshunov will be on the #1 PP, korchinski, the number #2 PP. vlasic off the PP. i believe las vegas is the least penalized club in the nhl and the blackhawks don't draw penalties. we'll see how many PPs the blackhawks get. if they don't move their feet, won't draw any penalties.

quick first period. kaiser was bad on wednesday, all-star 1st period today. poor guy has to play with murphy. las vegas - no penalty on maroon's backhand, obvious penalty on levshunov. they do get all the calls.

I think Korchinski is gonna be a stud. I can't want for Rinzel.

i want to say on vegas' 3rd goal - pang spent time pointing out korchinski's bad read that turned a likely 2x2 into a vegas 2x1 with only del mastro defending. yeah...mistake. what panger didn't tell us is the comedy that slaggert and foligno played at the vegas blue line, failing to get the puck in deep - after each had 1 chance to do so. this failure led to confusion, korchinski's bad defensive read and a vegas goal. this club loses more puck battles than any other club i've ever seen. times when 2 blackhawks lose the puck battle vs. 1 opponent.

all in all, a tough loss. hill stopped mikheyev and nazar breakaways and nazar had another breakaway where he lost control of the puck, trying to deke hill.

bottom line is that knight allowed 1 super softie and was outclassed by the vegas G. congrats to donato on his hat-trick.

I really hope Foligno comes up with an "injury" in the offseason and doesn't play anymore. This guy can not be here anymore. They need to name Vlasic the captain and start the next phase.

yeah, i've never been the biggest fan of his. the blackhawks did this nonsense to themselves - trying to market him as a loveable, skilled, and tough-as-nails, C. saw the dumb puff-piece yesterday, having fun with his bald head. dumb shit for ray raynor, with tyler macgregor reporting from cuddly-dudley's doghouse - not blackhawks pre-game. yeah, the guy is clearly on the downside, deserves 4th line time. skills and athleticism fading quick. under contract for one more year.

u of minnesota got eliminated, snuggerud signed an ELC with the blues - waiting for moore and rinzel...we'll see.

I think Moore stays in college one more year. He needs to transfer out of there. I would like to see Rinzel signed. If he signs and plays less than 9 games, does he burn through a year of the ELC? I think Nazar played like 2-3 games and did. I am not sure I am doing that unless I am sure he plays with the big club atleast half the season next year.

i believe if the player signs an ELC at age 20 or older (nazar), the first year burns - whether the player gets to 10 games in the nhl or plays every game in the ahl. the fact that dickinson had a down year after the extension, foligno is a C...we need as many Cs as possible. maybe you're right, moore could use another year at the u of m.

i believe levshunov is at that stage (nhl games) now - if he plays against utah tomorrow..his first year burns.

watching the zawaski/boysen/tirabassi podcast. some interesting comments about donato-bedard and then donato's contract.

I've gotta say, if they want this Blackhawks stuff on CHGO to work, Tirabassi needs to start having opinions rather than just filling dead space with words. He really just says things but doesn't actually say anything.

as far as the podcast:

- they really need to get a loveseat when vlasic (frequent guest) is on. i know they want to cozy up next to him. really need to ask alex, "what happened?"

- complimented bedard's play when shrugging off a complaint that bedard had no shots on goal against vegas. then, they both agreed that donato is the blackhawks offensive player of the season. the gen. talent behind donato? bedard needs to shoot more, case closed.

- agreed with them that the issue with donato will be term. boysen said $5 million per? see you. i agree again. boysen told us that donato is modest...

blackhawks signed both moore and rinzel..3 year ELCs, $941k, $1.34/$1.36 million, AAV. looks like rinzel got a bit more money than moore.

both players are 20 or older, so, first year will burn for both. starting next season, each has 2 years left. we'll see...don't expect much off the bat, hope they feel and look comfortable on the ice.

reading that moore will likely play tomorrow.

Moore needed 1 more year in college, but if they think they can develop him in Rockford, go for it.

Bring Rinzel up and lets see what he does.

Boston U won.

I guess Ryan Greene isn't signing...

both should play tomorrow.

looking forward to this utah game..

rinzel paired with kaiser on the 2nd d-pair. i guess the minnesota thing clinched the pairing for the staff. we actually have RD & LD combos with every D-pairing. the 3rd pairing is slow/not the best skaters.

moore will play wing on the 3rd line with veleno centering. ok. we'll check it out.

more seravalli predictions...he's the jon heyman of hockey, only better.

bold prediction that rinzel will never play an AHL game. hope he's that good.

fairly good first period for both. most shakiest D moments were with the $4.4 million/most experienced murphy on 'patrol'. u of Minn kids nearly flawless, rinzel with a soft backhand pass in the o-zone that saw a utah breakout and subsequent chance. bedard set him up nice.

on the PP, bedard needs to stop the nonsense figure-8s, looking to make a pin-point pass for a tap-in. shoot the puck. you have an elite shot. 5x5 bedard, still with the blind backhand passes at the blue line.

after getting 3 straight PPs, you knew that even a vicious slash to vlasic's calf wouldn't get called - just the unwritten bad rules of hockey. more good stuff from the u of Minn crew. rinzel did get smoked on that hit and you knew that the blackhawks would get an additional minor in an attempt to balance the calls.

poor korchinski, thinking that at times, he creates his own bad luck. utah getting easy deflections for goals, the backhawks have to climb two mountains and swim one ocean just to get an open look in the slot.

hopefully, they come back in the 3rd. bedard was the catalyst for utah's first goal. another hot dog attempt that failed, just inside utah's blueline. the pond hockey comment is a good moniker.

all in all, enjoyable game to watch. the club is their own worst enemy, a few players that hurt the club 5x5 - from bertuzzi to murphy to bedard & teuvo. when they need offense at 5x5, they are probably the weakest club in the league when it comes to forechecking - soft players that even panger noticed today and commented on what i have said: 2 blackhawks and 1 opponent on the boards, the opponent usually wins the puck. small players. the club can generate offense from the neutral zone and then they need to move around, not stand still.

PP entries embarrassed them today, fans let them know. won't change anything.

have to like the speed factor going forward.

they gave us a list of the 1st rounders in the past 3 years. i'd say korchinski is easily the most disappointing, followed by captain pond hockey. i was told that bedard has a super high hockey IQ, and he makes numerous dumb and dangerous plays/mistakes, every game. will he ever clean that up?

I would agree. There is no need for him to.

listened a bit to nhl network radio early and late mornings shows - didn't really hear anything about rinzel & moore. heard them talking about the frozen four for 3-4 mins and how snuggerud is now available for the blues...and maybe leonard to the caps and G fowler (69th overall in 2023) to the canadiens, as boston college lost to denver U.

the stat card from the game is:



not for the first time - nazar was electric offense and bad finishing. levshunov was due a bad game...vlasic is now frequently one of the lowest rated blackhawks every game. the obvious is a new coach, starting to think they need to sweep out all the bench and position coaches, except for perrault and waite.

Could he possibly be better than the great Connor Bedard?

sacha boisvert entering the transfer portal. leaving north dakota and not sure how troy murray will react.

prior to this season starting - the player selected first in the 2022 draft, slafkovsky, accepted a 8yr/$60.8 million deal. $7.6 million per. the canadiens rolling the dice a bit, he tallied 50 points last season, the 2nd year of his ELC.

this is also 2023 #1 pick overall bedard's second ELC season. bedard is currently on 58 points/8 games left. likely finish with 60-65 points for the season. is it better to resign him after this season before his 3rd and last ELC year, where he may get 85-90 points/use linear points progression and ask for $11 million per? isn't that the whole purpose of allowing players to burn through their first ELC season...cheaper to resign them after considering production/play after year #1 1/2 than year #3?

how did the habs do? slafkovsky currently has 46 points in 70 games. he's only a -1 in regards to +/-. canadiens and their fans are still high on this player.

would bedard accept anything under $10 million per for a new contract? i picked slafkovsky because i believe he's the closest comp. you don't want to lose him, but there's a limit. we still see lots of faults and wrinkles in his game.

this is such a flawed post. To call Slafkovsky a close comp to Bedard is pretty ridiculous and you know that.

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he's also a FWD, picked #1 overall, one year before bedard.

the canadiens decided the resign him to big money, before his 3rd ELC year.

next year is bedard's 3rd ELC year. is it better to resign him after this season, or wait until his ELC expires? this is what i'm asking. the comp is where and when he was drafted and his position.

Don't know how all that stuff works, but they should give Bedard whatever top dollar is. Trying to nickel and dime him this summer after he didn't put up the expected points would be extremely short sighted and risk the long term relationship with the franchise player.

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yes, no argument. i wasn't hinting at slafkovsky money. of course, his agent can always say not interested until year 3 of the ELC.

at this moment, i believe $9.5 million per, is not out of line for him - at least he shouldn't take it that way. if he has fantasies of $12 million per, he'll need to step it up in many ways.

i do believe in him and believe he'll be a 100 point a year player. if i was the GM, i'd run a $70 million over 7 years deal with him. $9.5 million per, $3.5 million signing bonus. going to be a boatload of young & talented players who'll be doing their contracts at the same time. fixing/calibrating your costs with a salary cap and getting the #1 guy out of the way is a great start.

at $9.5 million per year, he'd be above established all-star FWDs in the nhl.

I heard Boston U and another Hawks prospect is going to be on the team as well, Jack Pridham along with Ryan Greene.