Articles in Chicago Blackhawks

added 11:22pm, Video- One last salute is below. added 11:58pm, A longer video is below.

from Mark Lazerus of The Athletic,

No, for the record, Jonathan Toews doesn’t plan to retreat into a completely dark room for four days to make a decision on his future in the NHL.

“No, no, I don’t think I’ll have to get that extreme,” he said with a smirk.

Instead, when the Blackhawks’ season ends next week and he’s done cleaning out his locker and going through his exit interviews and bro-hugging his teammates, Toews will go about things the traditional way. He’ll talk to his girlfriend. To his family. To his closest friends. To the people “who know me better than anybody.”

But mostly, he’ll talk to himself. He’ll look within — to see how badly he wants to continue his career, how important hockey still is to him, how willing he is to continue fighting through the fatigue and pain and emotional struggle that come with his dual diagnoses of Long COVID and Chronic Immune Response Syndrome. Because if the answer to any of those questions is anything less than 100 percent, then the answer is obvious.

Because the NHL is all or nothing. You can’t play in this league half-hearted.

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via Sportsnet,

Jonathan Toews admitted Tuesday this might be his last season as a member of the Chicago Blackhawks.

Toews, 34, missed two months with chronic immune response syndrome and long COVID. On Tuesday, while talking to reporters for the first time since returning from the injury list, he expressed his frustration at the circumstances to led to his being sidelined.

“You can’t really explain because people won’t understand,” he told reporters after his team's morning skate. “It’s not like a knee injury or shoulder injury where you lay under an MRI and your proof is right there. It has been one of those complicated things. Even for me, it’s been really challenging at times to figure out what’s going on.”

After watching his long-time teammate Patrick Kane get traded to the New York Rangers ahead of the deadline, Toews said his future with the Blackhawks is up in the air as well.

“Regardless of what happens in the future this summer, it’s definitely on my mind that this could be my last few weeks here in Chicago as a Blackhawk,” he told reporters.

“So, that’s definitely very important for me to just go out there, enjoy the game, soak it in and just really appreciate everything I’ve been able to be a part of here in Chicago — and show my appreciation to the fans, as well.”

from Mark Lazerus of The Athletic,

The Blackhawks will become the third NHL team to decline to wear Pride jerseys during Pride Night, citing security concerns for their three players of Russian heritage, team sources confirmed to The Athletic.

Two Blackhawks sources stressed that the decision was made by team management and security officials, not by the players, but it’s another body blow to the Hockey is For Everyone movement that the NHL proudly touts, but all too frequently fails to back up.

A Russian law passed in December criminalized so-called LGBTQ+ “propaganda.” Since then, the Minnesota Wild and the New York Rangers opted out of wearing Pride-themed jerseys during warmups — typically, the jerseys have rainbow coloring and are auctioned off for charity.

Now the Blackhawks will join them, contradicting earlier statements from alternate captain Connor Murphy and team CEO Danny Wirtz.

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FRISCO, Texas -- Dallas Stars General Manager Jim Nill announced today that the club has acquired forward Max Domi and goaltender Dylan Wells from the Chicago Blackhawks in exchange for goaltender Anton Khudobin and a 2025 second-round draft pick. In a related move, the Stars have assigned Wells and loaned forwards Fredrik Karlstrom, Fredrik Olofsson and netminder Matt Murray to the Texas Stars, Dallas' development affiliate in the American Hockey League (AHL).

"We're excited to add a player of Max's caliber to our lineup," said Nill. "His offense this season speaks for itself, but he'll also provide energy, grit and a veteran presence as we continue our push to the postseason."

from Emily Kaplan of ESPN,

The Chicago Blackhawks have agreed to send star winger Patrick Kane to the New York Rangers, sources told ESPN on Tuesday.

In return, the Rangers are sending two draft picks to Chicago -- a 2023 second round pick, which carries conditions to improve to a first-round pick, as well as a 2023 fourth round pick.

The deal is expected to become official after 5 p.m. ET on Tuesday when New York has accrued the appropriate amount of cap space to fit in Kane's contract. Chicago will retain 50% of Kane's $10.5 million contract, and a third team signed on to take on 50% of that, meaning Kane will only count for $2.625 million against the Rangers cap.

The trade call is scheduled for later Tuesday, sources told ESPN.

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from Ken Wiebe of Sportsnet,

Luke Richardson knew this wasn’t going to be a quick fix, yet that didn’t deter him from attacking his first NHL head coaching job with vigour.

When you’ve been behind a bench as an assistant coach at the NHL level for nearly a decade and sprinkled in four seasons as the head coach in the American Hockey League, it’s safe to say that going into a rebuild isn’t going to be viewed as an optimal situation for everyone.

But after a conversation with Richardson prior to Saturday’s game with the Winnipeg Jets, it’s easy to see why the Chicago Blackhawks entrusted the longtime NHL defenceman with the task of trying to move the rebuilding process forward....

Working to provide a foundation for a group with a strong prospect pool is right up Richardson’s alley and he’s encouraged by the steps that are being taken, even if he needs to look closer at incremental growth right now rather than just wins and losses in this results-oriented business.

“Just be very transparent,” Richardson began. “A positive attitude from the coaching staff to the players and having that communication with players and building a good relationship with each player, knowing that there are 20 different personalities in there and you can’t get everything across the same one to one person.

“So we’re creating a culture where we’re not afraid to ask (questions) and creating dialogue between players and coaches and that becomes dialogue between the player and the player, on the bench, in practice, we see that a lot. Instead of the D yelling at the forwards and the forwards yelling at the D, we’re creating more conversations than frustration. The communication level is No. 1 for me and then, the work ethic follows.”

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from Mark Lazerus and Scott Powers of The Athletic,

“It’s not like the happiest I’ve been to hear about a trade,” he said. “But I think the Rangers, I definitely pay attention to. Intrigued for obvious reasons. Obviously, they made a move to get him and another big defenseman. You’ve got to respect them going out and trying to make the team better. … If things were going to happen, that was a team I was definitely looking at. It seems like they kind of filled their void and went ahead and made a deal. So it is what it is.”

Kane has yet to inform Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson if he’ll waive his no-movement clause, but it certainly sounded like he’s leaning heavily in that direction. Asked if he should open himself up to more teams, like six, Kane bristled.

“I don’t think the number will be six,” he said. “But obviously you want to do right by the franchise, and the organization here has been amazing to me and given me so much. So you definitely want what’s best for both sides.

“In fairness to Kyle, I haven’t went to Kyle and said, ‘I wanted to go here (or) I want to stay.’ I haven’t gotten to any of that yet. I think we kind of said we’d take it up to the deadline and it’s February and there’s still a few weeks. So I think within the next 10 days or so, we’ll probably get a clearer picture of what’s going to happen.”

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from John Dietz of the Chicago Daily-Herald,

Bobby Hull, the Blackhawks' all-time leading goal scorer, died Monday morning, two people close to Hull told the Daily Herald.

No other immediate details were available. Hull just celebrated his 84th birthday on Jan. 3.

The controversial Hull, who possessed a howitzer of a shot that allowed him to score 610 NHL goals, broke into the league in the 1957-58 season. He scored 30 or more goals for 13 consecutive seasons then left for the World Hockey Association in 1972 when the league agreed to pay him $1 million.

Hull, Stan Mikita and others led the Hawks to a Stanley Cup title in 1961.

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Below watch a Legends of Hockey feature on Hull.

from Mark Lazerus of The Athletic,

The Blackhawks, you see, don’t care about your tank. They don’t care about the draft lottery. They don’t care about Connor Bedard. Not in the slightest. And they’re having quite a bit of fun messing with general manager Kyle Davidson’s (smart, if cynical) grand design.

“That’s why we play the game, right?” said defenseman Seth Jones, who’s been bristling at the very idea of losing to win since Day 1 of training camp. “We’re trying to win every game we play. We’ve got to control what we can control in here, and obviously the front office, they control that.”

That, of course, is a concerted effort by the franchise to finish in 32nd place this season, in order to ensure a top-three pick in a highly touted draft and secure the best odds of drafting Bedard, the kind of rare talent who could dramatically alter the Blackhawks’ future for the better.

That, is what commissioner Gary Bettman hilariously denied happens in the NHL. But Bettman, ever the lawyer, chose his words wisely, specifically saying that players don’t tank, that coaches don’t tank. And he’s absolutely right. Richardson said it himself, right after he was hired, that he was going to try to make things as difficult as possible for Davidson, and Davidson welcomed the defiance.

Does he still welcome it now that the Blackhawks are entering their bye week having won a modest-yet-sort-of-stunning seven of their last 11 games, bringing Columbus, Anaheim, Arizona and San Jose back into the race for the bottom?

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from Mark Lazerus of The Athletic,

All summer, and throughout the Blackhawks’ unexpectedly fun start, people around the league — other reporters, radio hosts across Canada, execs from other front offices, and in two surprising incidents, other NHL players — asked me what I expected Kane to do. And my answer was always the same — I really didn’t know. Everyone else was so sure he was a goner, but I wasn’t. Everything I had gathered from my own reporting and everything I knew about Kane, having covered him for a decade, told me that he was looking for a reason to stay. That he wanted to stay. That he wanted to be a Blackhawk for life and he wanted to play alongside Bedard or whichever other young superstar the Blackhawks draft and he wanted to still be here when the Blackhawks came out the other end of this process.

I still believe that.

But I no longer think it’ll happen. I can’t. It’s too real now, too bleak. And the losses, the hopelessness, seem to be weighing on Kane now. He’s not scoring at his usual pace, with just 16 points (and just three goals) in 21 games. He doesn’t have his usual jump. And he doesn’t seem to be having much fun out there. After Athanasiou’s ill-fated goal on Sunday — which was created when Kane, swarmed by three Jets, managed to muscle the puck to the low slot, where Athanasiou tipped it in — Kane pointed to Athanasiou and pumped his fist over his head, like he so often does when a teammate does something well. Nobody loves scoring and creating goals like Kane does. But the joy was short-lived. As it has been all season.

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from Mark Lazerus of The Athletic,

Do you have any mixed emotions about this start? The pro scouting has been a success, the guys you’re bringing in are the right fit, they work hard and Luke (Richardson)’s obviously building an identity. You’re establishing something here. But it’s also messing up the plans a little bit. We all know the worst thing you can do is finish like 10th place in the conference.

It’s not mixed emotions. It’s just kind of, when it comes time to pick, wherever we’re going to pick, you just have to find talent wherever you end up. Before the season and over the summer, it was just, ‘Oh, they’re just doing whatever they can to get a top-three pick.’ The idea of trying to do that is so hard. To finish anywhere specific in the standings is so damn hard. Because one, there’s much more parity in the league than anyone really wants to say. And two, the players just want to win.

Right, players don’t tank.

They do not. They just want to win every night. And we’re trying to build an identity of a way we think we can win down the road. And we’ve got a coach that’s aligned in that. So that’s going to lead to some good nights and some good stretches. And you know what? I think it’s more important that we do show some positive steps throughout the season because that’s going to be conducive to winning. And where we end up, we’ll see. It’s our job at that point to find the talent wherever we pick. It’s way too hard to say, “Oh, we’re going to do whatever we can to finish last.”

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from Kevin Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe,

What if general manager Don Sweeney could swing a deal, ideally now, for the 33-year-old Kane and his $10.5 million cap hit?

Too old? Not really. The prolific Kane is actually a few months younger than Brad Marchand.

Not enough offense? Uh … Kane, whose 1,180-point output since his rookie 2007-08 season has been exceeded only by Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby, rolled up 92 points last season. That was tied for No. 14 on the league list. The top-scoring Bruin, Marchand, delivered 80 points.

Too close to the end of his career? No way. The compact Kane, 5 feet 10 inches and 180 pounds, rarely misses a shift, never mind a game. He looks worthy of a four-year extension, at which point he would be 38 and perhaps ready for one of those year-to-year deals such as Patrice Bergeron, 37, and David Krejci, 36, recently signed with the Bruins.

Adding Kane as an elite right wing with David Pastrnak, to ride with Bergeron or Krejci, would make for two of the NHL’s most dynamic lines.

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Vancouver, B.C. - Vancouver Canucks General Manager Patrik Allvin announced today that the club has acquired defenceman Riley Stillman from the Chicago Blackhawks in exchange for forward Jason Dickinson and a 2024 second round draft pick.

Stillman, 24, appeared in 52 games with Chicago last season, recording a career-high 12 points (2-10-12) and 36 penalty minutes. He also registered 67 blocked shots, ranking fifth on the team, and led all Blackhawks defencemen in hits per 60 minutes (9.34).

In 108 career regular season games split between Chicago and Florida, Stillman has 18 points (3-15-18) and 68 penalty minutes. The 6'1", 196-pound defenceman also appeared in three playoff games with the Panthers during the 2020 qualifying round.

A native of Peterborough, Ontario, Stillman was originally selected by the Florida Panthers in the fourth round, 114th overall in the 2016 NHL Entry Draft.