It's weird to have "real" news to disrupt my writing schedule. And by weird, I mean amazing.
I was about to publish an article about the outside of the box options for the Blackhawks goaltending situation, but of course, the Hawks have to go and announce a trio of signings.
This is a good day for Chicago and I would expect this trend to continue.
No, not just the continued trend of the Blackhawks dipping back into the European market, but the one of signing cheap low-risk, high-reward players.
As I've mentioned, the reality is that the Hawks (along with many other teams) are going to need these savvy signings to remain competitive.
Do I think these signings now make the Hawks Stanley Cup contenders? No. But I do believe this pushes them back into the conversation of a perennial playoff team.
It's additions like Swiss MVP Pius Suter, NCAA talent Wyatt Kalyuk, and top prospect Ian Mitchell, coupled with the growth of budding stars like Kirby Dach, Adam Boqvist, and Dominik Kubalik that puts Chicago is a much better position than they were just a couple years ago.
I was looking at the LA Kings and the state of their rebuild and it's evident that they are creating building blocks through the entry draft. This is a smart and reasonable thing to do and maybe the Blackhawks should have done the same things.
However, thanks to long-term contracts with NMCs, that wasn't much of an option. To be honest, maybe it wasn't needed as much as their peers in LA.
I've written about the importance of the mentorship of guys like Duncan Keith and that can be said for all of the core players.
There's a reason for excitement beyond this play-in series with Edmonton when you see the Hawks making signings like this.
To be completely transparent, it's been difficult to write about this team in the last few years and one of the main reasons was due to the lack of direction.
Sure, I was on board at the time with bringing in guys like Andrew Shaw, Olli Maatta, Calvin de Haan, and heck, even Ryan Carpenter. Then again, I was maybe just as desperate as the Hawks front office to see a positive result on the ice.
As I mentioned above, these signings aren't going to change the team (although Ian Mitchell could be a long-term top 4 D the Hawks will need to succeed in the near future), but it's a step in the right direction.
I found it really encouraging to read this excerpt from Ben Pope's article yesterday:
"The motivation behind the shuffling was twofold, general manager Stan Bowman said Monday — first, to give greater weight and influence to some younger voices, and second, to put more resources toward finding cheap, young players who can help the Hawks survive their impending salary-cap crunch." (Source: Chicago Sun-Times article by Ben Pope)
The Danny Wirtz era appears to be off to a good start and has integrated some new age thinking - that I would assume – John McDonough was against.
Here's to finding more talent on the cheap.
I am not going to breakdown every player signed today but instead, leave you with video to watch at your leisure.
Enjoy!
Pius Suter highlights for your eyeballs:
Wyatt Kalynuk is a very intriguing signing. There isn't much out there in terms of video highlights on the new dman, but here is what his now-former coach, Tony Granato says about the 23-year old:
At 23 years old, Kalynuk is ahead of the curve in his development compared to some of the other younger defensemen in the pipeline. And his game is rounding out nicely.
"The good thing about him is he knows his responsibilities defensively to take care of that end," Granato said. "So you don't like saying offensive defenseman because a lot of times you say that and you think players that don't take pride in the defensive part of the game. That's certainly not the case with him.
"Defensively, his game was very solid, very responsible. He's not an overpowering defenseman that's going to run people over, but positionally, he's going to be in great position, he's smart, he makes a great first pass and I think he's got great potential for a real high-exciting NHL career."
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