2024 Season Preview
A look at what the future holds
It’s lurking around the corner. The Blackhawks 2024 season is almost upon us. Although puck drop isn’t until October, prospect showcases (this week!), training camp, and preseason should be enough to distract fans of a certain dumpster fire that is currently raging in the South Side.
Boy is it looking like a bleak future there.
For the fans of a hockey club in the West Side, things are looking a bit brighter. Which is what I’m writing about this week. We’ll tale a look at how GM Kyle Davidson kept to his word about improving the roster, some player news, potential line-up talk, and finish the preview with a prediction in the standigs.
Look, I have to say it upfront. But it’s worth saying only because there are fans who don’t have realistic expectations. The Hawks are going to be bad again.
The Agenda
Summer Recap
Player News
Potential Line-up
Forwards
Blueline
Special Teams
Where the Hawks finish in the standings
Let’s do a quick summer recap, shall we?
A Quick Recap
To recap the summer, RFA’s who didn’t receive a qualifying offer and are gone include MacKenzie Entwistle, Reese Johnson, Taylor Raddysh, Michal Teply, Filip Roos, and Jaxson Stauber. Joey Anderson didn’t receive a qualifying offer but was signed back as a free agent.
Isaak Phillips and Louis Crevier were the only RFA’s signed and you can expect both to play in Rockford this season.
Players who rode off into the unrestricted free agent sunset were Tyler Johnson, Colin Blackwell, David Gust, Mike Hardman, Jaycob Megna, Luke Philp, Rem Pitlick, Jared Tinordi, Nikita Zaitsev, and Sam Lafferty (technically since the Hawks acquired his rights on June 26).
Additions from free agency include: Tyler Bertuzzi, Teuvo Teravainen, Alec Martinez, TJ Brodie, Pat Maroon, Craig Smith, Joey Anderson (technically), and Laurent Brossoit. Certainly a few names who will improve things for the Hawks, but that was a low bar to begin with.
Let’s not forget the trade for Ilya Mikheyev that took place right before the draft. The Canucks received the Hawks 4th Round pick in the 2027 draft.
News
Let’s go over some news that impacts some players.
The most recent news was that Brossoit underwent knee surgery last week with a 5-7 week recovery window. This might mean that Brossoit misses some regular season games and gives Arvid Soderblom the backup spot in net.
Artyom Levshunov signed his Entry Level Contract on July 6. He won’t be returning to college to play with Michigan State. He’ll more than likely spend next season in Rockford.
Marek Vanacker also signed their ELC in the offseason. Vanacker was picked 27th overall this year and will be with Brantford in the OHL this season.
To refresh some signings: Alex Vlasic signed a deal at $4.6mil x 6 years (this seriously rocks). Lukas Reichel signed a 2-year deal at $1.2mil AAV. Brett Seney, Cole Guttman, and Zach Sanford all signed 1-year extensions at $775k. Martin Misiak signed his ELC in April and he’ll be down in Rockford back in the OHL.
Other than that, it’s been fairly quiet, and we’ll take it. I mean, we could have Bowman as GM, right Edmonton?
Line Up
Ok, so now we get into the nuts and bolts of this team.
The below is what we could see on Oct. 8 (if Brossoit is injury free).
Kind of looks like a real NHL roster, doesn’t it? If you notice, the blueline is looking somewhat clogged. We’ll get to Korchinski’s spot in a second.
The Forward Core
The forwards look much better than what was thrown together last year thanks to injuries (knock on wood). Connor will be entering his sophomore season with high expectations. With a better forward core around it’ll be fun to see how many points Bedard produces. Right now the question is more around who plays with Bedard.
Teuvo will play well with Bedard considering he’s a pass-first winger and is very good on the forecheck. Oh, and Teuvo is also a solid two-way player. Much needed. By the way, Teuvo is going to be 30. Remember his first season with the Hawks? Yeah, he was 20. Time flies.
Teravainen’s skill set is better suited for Bedard but Kurashev also built chemistry with Connor last season. Although Kurashev isn't a top-6 player on a good team, expect him to see him with Bedard sometime this season. But I see Kurashev starting the season on the second line.
Bertuzzi can also play with Bedard. Bertuzzi gets goals up close, screens the goaltender, and battles for the puck. Although he’s not the most defensively sound, Tyler will add production to either the 1st or 2nd line. If Tyler plays on the 2nd line, that puts Hall up with Bedard. We’ll see how Hall looks this season, but I think Richardson will have Hall on the 2nd line and Bertuzzi up on the 1st to start the season.
Athanasiou fits on the second line at best and it would be nice to see him play with Kurashev and Reichel. Those three looked solid at the end of the 2022-2023 season. Speaking of Reichel…
This is a very important year for Reichel. It’s the first of his 2-year extension in which he has a lot to prove. I am still very optimistic that Reichel has a future on this team on the second line. He needs to start this season strong.
Dickinson will own that third line. The Selke finalist won’t have the season he had last year (regression to the mean and all that), but he’s playing in a role he was made for. He’ll have Foligno on his wing and Reichel to start the season.
The 4th Line will see Maroon, Mikheyev, and Smith while Donato and Anderson can be slotted in either the 3rd or 4th line.
Other forwards worth talking about are Frank Nazar and Landon Slaggert. I think both start in Rockford pending a very strong training camp. Nazar looked solid last year in his NHL debut. Hard to argue with a goal on his first NHL shot. But playing an entire NHL season is a different beast. Slaggert also looked like a solid third liner and I think time in Rockford will help him refine his game.
If either plays with the Hawks at the start, Anderson would be the one to go down to Rockford.
Blueline Noodles
The blueline is where things get interesting.
Vlasic is going into his second NHL season with high expectations. Sophomore slump? Don’t fret. Kid has been working on his slapshot this offseason. I think he’ll be fine. He’ll play with Jones who’s a great partner for him. We do want Jones to produce a lot more offensively and make better decisions.
Alec Martinez will probably slot in on the second pairing with Korchinski (one second on him). Murphy will slot in on the third pairing with TJ Brodie. But this all depends on which of the younglings make it to the roster…
Korchinski played an impressive NHL season as a 19-year-old. Impressive in that he played the whole season. He would have greatly benefitted with some time in Rockford had that been an option (CHL contract and not being 20 years old). Don’t be surprised if/when he plays in Rockford. If he doesn’t, putting him with either Martinez or Murphy will be a huge plus for him. No more Megna’s or traffic cones to play with.
If not Korch, then who? Phillips and Crevier will be in Rockford. Del Mastro had a strong call-up last season. Kaiser looked improved during his second call-up. Korchinski may need to refine some defensive things in the AHL (but why not in the NHL? Are we worried about his confidence?)
So it’ll come down to Del Mastro, Kaiser, or Korchinski. And if we are so keen on Korch developing in the AHL, I have an inkling that Del Mastro would make the opening night roster.
Guess we just have to wait.
Special Teams
There won’t be too much to dive in here. Special teams as a whole should be an improvement from last year. The Hawks finished 5th worst with a 16.6 powerplay percentage and 6th worst with a 75.8 penalty kill percentage.
Yikes.
For that first PP unit, my question is who is going to QB it. For as much hate as Seth Jones gets, I do agree that his decision making ability last season was subpar. A lot of shots that should have been passed. However, with Bertuzzi as the bumper, those shots that Jones takes should turn into dirty powerplay goals. Teuvo’s pass-first mentaltiy will also be nice to have.
The second PP unit is still out for lunch. If Korchinski stays in the NHL, does he QB it? Remember those rookie mistakes at the blue line he made last year? Korchinski really struggled with those powerplay entries. The double late entry (or as CHGO mislabels it, the slingshot) really slows things down for this team.
For the PK, Teuvo will be a great add as he is a solid 2-way forward. Bertuzzi isn’t great in the d-zone so don’t expect him to be on a PK unit. Vlasic will be solid again. Aaaand that’s pretty much it.
Diamond was the PK formation last season, don’t see a reason to change that up.
Standings
The bar is low for the Hawks. There is added offensive power, but not enough to make fans delusional into thinking that this is a playoff team. We’re talking about a team that finished with 52 points and would need to make up about 40.
It’s realistic to think that this team finishes with around 70 points. That’s still a bottom 10 team (hello draft lottery).
So if you are sick of losing, it ain’t over yet.
That said, we shouldn’t accept turd quality. And that brings us to behind the bench.
Luke Richardson won’t have a team that has Ryan Donato playing top-6 minutes this season (knock on wood, again). He has real NHL forwards, an elite center in his second NHL season, and a blue line that isn’t total vomit.
I am a Richardson fan. Since day 1.
However, it would be incredibly surprising if this is “the guy.” That guy being the coach who brings the team to a Stanley Cup in the distant future.
So, Luke will have to prove himself this season. The bar is low. Finish around the 70 point mark, and that’s meeting expectations. String together losses and find yourself in the basement again, and well… we can start looking at the coach and not the players.
He’s made some questionable decisions in the past. But he’s tactically sound enough that he’ll probably be the coach until the Hawks are ready to contend for a cup, which is years away. Another aspect that isn’t immediatly observable is how he develops young players.
So that’s how it’s going to be, is it?
We have some much needed help and a team that is capable of finishing around the 70 point mark.
I think the Hawks will either get off to a hot start and then slog through December and January. Or the Hawks will have an ugly start and struggle to find consistency because this is still a bad team.
Let’s Go Hawks