By Chris Block
Want to thank those who listened to the Puck Chatter podcast Al Cimaglia and I did a couple weeks ago. Al and I had been talking about doing one for a long time. It’s been so long since we’ve done one and thus I didn’t expect a lot of feedback, but we did get some. The current plan is to do another one, probably next week, when we’ll talk a little more about Kyle Beach and the Blackhawks at large.
As for this sudden output, I’ve had a lot of unexpected time on my hands recently. I’m fine now but had been laid up on the couch for a while. Hence, I got to watch a bunch of Rockford and other NHL hockey of late that I haven’t regularly been able to keep up with previously this season. Translation – I’m bored, so here we are.
Blackhawks recall Lukas Reichel
General manager Kyle Davidson recalled Lukas Reichel on Wednesday. Reichel is expected to be in the lineup Thursday night when Seattle makes its first United Center visit. He is without a point in 5 games up with Blackhawks so far in 2022.
It’s the third time Reichel has been up with the NHL club this season. If he plays in five more NHL games before the season ends, the Blackhawks will burn the first year of Reichel’s 3-year entry-level contract. Including Thursday, the Blackhawks have 12 games left on the schedule.
Even though Davidson has insisted he doesn’t care if he ‘burns’ year one of Reichel’s salary cap-friendly contract, it would be idiotic to do so at this point. That is, unless the Blackhawks promised Reichel and his agent prior to this year that they would get Reichel into 10 or more games and get Reichel one-year closer to his next contract. Reichel could’ve been an NHL regular a month ago. Burning it now to own the media, or whatever, makes no sense.
One of the reasons previously stated for keeping Reichel in Rockford, or preventing some of the IceHogs blueliners further audition in Chicago is the IceHogs’ status in the AHL playoff race.
The truth is Rockford is pretty much entrenched in the 4th spot in the AHL Central. Even before the IceHogs recent 4-game road trip (in which the ‘Hogs went 3-1), Rockford could play a little below .500 hockey the rest of the way and still finish in 4th. They could get hot, and lucky, and overtake Milwaukee for 3rd place – which would grant the IceHogs a first-round (3 game series) bye and pit the Hogs against Manitoba in the Division semi-final. Otherwise, Rockford will finish exactly where they’ve been, in 4th with home ice in a 3-game series against either the Texas Stars or Iowa Wild. The winner of that series will play the Central Division leading Chicago Wolves in a best-of-5 division semi. So, the much repeated now stance that the Blackhawks can’t give any of their young guys a look on the NHL club because “Rockford’s in a playoff race” is simply – a crock.
And while Davidson has touted the importance of prospects playing in meaningful hockey this spring, he didn’t go out and acquire veteran help to boost the IceHogs chances this postseason like Stan Bowman did for Jeremy Colliton in 2018. Outside of Reichel and players currently on the IceHogs roster, only Reese Johnson, Collin Delia and Alex Vlasic were qualified to participate in the AHL postseason.
As for Reichel, watching him recently in Rockford is reminiscent of Teuvo Teravainen’s stint with the IceHogs.
While I don’t think there was any harm in Reichel spending half a season in the AHL, its gone to the point where his presence in that atmosphere has outrun its usefulness. Players with his level of skill will eventually fall into bad habits if they’re not surrounded by players of similar skill who process the game at a higher level.
Reichel is at his best when he plays a speed game. He’s an effortless skater and has great acceleration ability. He’s not a prolific shooter. Most often he defers and opts to setup his linemates. But he does have a nice release on his one-timers when he uses it. He averaging less than 2 shots on goal per game in the AHL. He’s scoring at a 22.6% clip in Rockford. Oddly, he’s just 1 for 6 in shootout attempts. Getting Reichel to shoot more often and not pass up scoring opportunities is an issue I see for him going forward though.
Like Teravainen, Reichel seems like he’s conscious of not getting himself hurt in the AHL. Its not that he’s afraid of contact, he’ll put himself in harm’s way for the sake of an offensive opportunity, but otherwise he doesn’t engage physically. And once the whistle blows, he clocks out. On Friday, he gave a puck away in his own zone when he felt a checker closing in on him. It was a bad look but I haven’t seen that out of him routinely. But I haven’t watched him all season either. Reichel’s also adept at conserving his energy. He’s cerebral in that sense. If he makes a read on a puck and judges that he won’t be able to make that play, he doesn’t waste his energy. That can lead to him appearing like he’s not giving 100 percent at times but its just that he sees the game and processes it on a higher level than some.
Reichel has great stick skills. He can settle a puck and move it all while in motion, seemingly without much effort. His stickhandling is high end in tight spaces as well. One of the negatives I see with him right now is his tendency to rush the puck into the offensive zone and wait too long to pass. He’s usually thinking pass first and sometimes he waits too long and by the time he centers the puck, or tries to setup a scoring chance, the puck is in too tight and the receiver can’t do much with it. I’d like to see him shoot it himself, peel off or hold onto the puck in some of those situations and try to set up some extended zone time – in which he can also float into positions where he can be set up for shooting chances of his own. Perhaps with some higher skilled NHL players he’ll make that adjustment.
He’s inconsistent in the faceoff circle. In his last three games he was 20%, 66% and 50% at the dot. In games that I’ve seen, more than not he goes for the clean forehand technique. When interim head coach Anders Sorenson mixes up his lines, or stacks for more offense, Reichel gets moved to right wing.
Somewhat amazingly, Reichel only has three penalties this season, and those all came on one weekend in October. He’s a high-tempo offensive-minded player who draws penalties in pushing a high pace but rarely commits them. He’ll have to compete harder on the defensive end in the NHL however.
Alex Vlasic and other prospect news
-Recent signing, six-foot seven-inch, 20-year-old blueliner Alex Vlasic will be on the Blackhawks NHL roster and collect $225,000 before he’s assigned the Rockford IceHogs and begins his actual development in agreeing to turn pro and forgo his senior year at Boston University.
-The Hockey News annual “Future Watch” was published recently. I don’t put much stock into its rankings and do so at your own risk.
Last year, THN ranked the Blackhawks top ten prospects and had Evan Barratt at 2nd, John Quenneville at 6th and Chad Krys at 8th. Prospect rankings are hard, but not THAT hard. Barratt was a nice college player at Penn State but his skating is below average and his other skills weren’t going to be good enough at this level. In this year’s rankings, THN drops him to 6th. He shouldn’t be in there at all.
The biggest error with this year’s THN rankings is Nicolas Beaudin at 2 (the 3rd time in 4 years THN has rated Beaudin in this spot), behind the obvious top-rated Lukas Reichel. Beaudin began the year getting top D-pair minutes in Rockford. Over the course of the year his minutes had declined, he’s been on and off the second power play unit and since THN published their new rankings, Beaudin has been a healthy scratch in a couple of games. THN wrote, “[Beaudin] must improve his consistency to separate himself from the likes of D-men Ian Mitchell, Alec Regula, Wyatt Kalynuk and Isaak Phillips.”
Strange, because THN left Ian Mitchell out of their top 10 Blackhawks prospects this time. Mitchell is currently Rockford’s top minute-man and the closest of all IceHogs blueliners to earning a potential long-term audition for a spot in the NHL.
Mitchell has missed the past three IceHogs games with an undisclosed ailment. He finished his last game on Friday, an overtime win at Tucson. Late in that game, he appeared to have been laboring (something lower body possibly) after a scramble around the IceHogs net, but he participated in overtime and was in front of the Tucson goal, creating traffic on the game-winning goal.
The full THN top ten Blackhawks prospects from the 2022 “Future Watch” edition:
1-Lukas Reichel, 2-Nicolas Beaudin, 3-Nolan Allan, 4-Colton Dach, 5-G-Drew Commesso, 6-Evan Barratt, 7-Alec Regula, 8-G-Arvid Soderblom, 9-Wyatt Kaiser, 10-Isaak Phillips.
Phillips is still pretty raw and could use another full season in Rockford, but he’s potentially a guy who could be in the mix long-term. Over time, he should calm down and develop better decision making with his passes and choices of when to jump up in the play. Phillips has a nice shot. His compete-level is there already. There are some issues. Phillips poor situational awareness cost Rockford any chance of a comeback in Monday’s loss at Henderson (Vegas). He carried the puck through the middle of the neutral zone, but instead of chip the puck into the opposing zone and let his wingers, who were skating with him, use their speed and do the work, Phillips tried to do it alone. He wound up deep in the Henderson zone and battling against two Henderson players for the puck. He lost possession and the Silver Knights wound up scoring on a 3-on-1 break the other way. That put the visitors down 4-1 with 11 minutes to play. You credit Phillips’ energy and desire to compete, but he has to make a better decision there when there’s still a lot of time on the clock and one of those wingers was Lukas Reichel. But the next night, Phillips made a great pass off a rush into the Henderson zone which set up Josiah Slavin for the only goal of the night. So, it’s kind of a roller coaster, as it is with many young players when they get to a level where they’re not dramatically better than most of who they’re sharing the ice with. Consistency is a big issue with Phillips. Friday night at Tucson he was hounded by Roadrunner forecheckers and turned the puck over at will. He struggled with anything that involved handling the puck. The next night he made some nice passes and a great read on the IceHogs first goal when he recognized a Tucson forward was without a stick and pinched down into the zone and setup Garrett Mitchell.
I’d have Kaiser slightly higher on this list, but the Hawks should take their time with him as well. In what I’ve seen of Nolan Allan, I’d lean toward making him the best bet of the bunch in terms of becoming a permanent fixture on the Blackhawks blue line down the road, but I haven’t seen enough of him this season to really judge that fairly. Allan is known for his defense and positional play, but I think there’s more offense there once he gets into a professional setting.
One possible oversight in the THN rankings is Notre Dame forward Landon Slaggert.
When analyzing that Brandon Hagel trade, you’d have to think Kyle Davidson and company are figuring Slaggert ultimately would be the guy they’re projecting taking Hagel’s spot on the NHL depth chart when it came time for Hagel’s next contract. When you look at it that way, and consider Hagel’s shooting percentage was at 22% at the time of the deal, along with acquiring the two first-round picks from Tampa, that trade was pretty much a no-brainer for Davidson.
Slaggert projects out as virtually the same player as Hagel if all goes well. He just completed his second year at Notre Dame, and with the NCAA granting an extended year of eligibility for student-athletes due to the impact of Covid-19, Slaggert could stay at Notre Dame into 2025 if he wanted to. I’d expect the Blackhawks to start pushing for Slaggert to go pro after his 2022-23 season and spend a full ’23-24 campaign in Rockford, making his potential full-time Chicago arrival during the ’24-25 season. Had Hagel played out his $1.5M per year contract in Chicago, he’d be looking at a new contract for ’24-25.
That 2020 Blackhawks draft class is looking pretty good so far. Time will tell, obviously. There are no guarantees any of these players, including Reichel, will ultimately meet projections. But Reichel appears to be about ready to be a top six piece for years to come, and if Slaggert turns into a solid middle-six role player, ala Hagel, and either Wyatt Kaiser or Phillips can mature into an NHL regular, Mark Kelley did a great job in 2020. Drew Commesso is doing really well at Boston University too. The Blackhawks haven’t had a draft that yielded multiple NHL regulars in 9 or 10 years. Though, I suppose you could argue 2016 (DeBrincat, Lucas Carlsson) did. But, right now, 2020 is looking promising. Or, I just jinxed it.
Kelley and company made some curious selections in 2021, for sure, but the nature of the 2020-21 season made it so that Draft is almost a complete crapshoot anyhow. I’m not arguing Kelley should’ve kept his job. He’s made some good picks over the years and many that just haven’t panned out. But his drafts haven’t been helped by the fact the Blackhawks have been mostly inept at developing their own post-draft. The irony here is in Davidson possibly benefiting from the most recent work of a guy he just fired under the pretext of poor performance.
2021 THN Blackhawks Prospect Rankings (March 2021)
1-Lukas Reichel, 2-Evan Barratt, 3-Alex Regula, 4-Drew Commesso, 5-Wyatt Kalynuk, 6-John Quenneville, 7-Slava Demin, 8-Chad Krys, 9-Michael Teply, 10-MacKenzie Entwistle
2020 THN Blackhawks Prospect Rankings (March 2020)
1-Ian Mitchell, 2-Nicolas Beaudin, 3-Lucas Carlsson, 4-John Quenneville, 5-Chad Krys, 6-Slava Demin, 7-Tim Soderlund, 8-Brandon Hagel, 9-Philipp Kurashev, 10-Mackenzie Entwistle
2019 THN Blackhawks Prospect Rankings (March 2019)
1-Adam Boqvist, 2-Nicolas Beaudin, 3-Dylan Sikura, 4-Ian Mitchell, 5-Lucas Carlsson, 6-Tim Soderlund, 7-Chad Krys, 8-Artur Kayumov, 9-Evan Barratt, 10-Brandon Hagel
Stanislav “Slava” Demin, of course, is the prospect Stan Bowman acquired from Vegas, along with Malcom Subban and a 2020 second round pick (Drew Commesso) in exchange for Robin Lehner ahead of the 2020 NHL trade deadline. Demin was a teammate of Ian Mitchell for two years. After the trade, and subsequent junior season with Denver, Slava Demin transferred to Massachusetts for the 2021-22 season where he managed just 3 points in 22 games. At this point, the outlook is not good Demin.
Demin is evidently exercising his 5th year of college hockey, and has entered the NCAA transfer portal for a second time.
Also looking to change schools is 7th round 2021 Blackhawks draft pick, defenseman Connor Kelley. After two seasons at Minnesota-Duluth, Kelley has entered the NCAA transfer portal. This is an interesting one. A UMD teammate of fellow Blackhawks prospect Wyatt Kaiser, Kelley, 20, is an interesting prospect as he’s an offensive talent who has been cast in more conservative, defensive roles since his initial draft year with the US development program. His scouting reports are mostly very complimentary when it comes to the defensive side of the game. In 64 games at UMD, Kelley had 5 goals, 11 assists and was a plus-22. Kelley is apparently leaving UMD over playing time. He saw top four minutes, paired at times with Kaiser, at the beginning of this past season but down the stretch he was relegated to the Bulldogs’ third pair. Connor’s older un-drafted brother Justin (St. Thomas) is also in the transfer portal.
More IceHogs injury notes
-The players in Rockford who have missed time with concussions, or concussion-like symptoms include; Lukas Reichel (6 games), Dylan McLaughlin (11 games), Chad Yetman (5gms), Jakub Galvas (4 gms), and goalie Arvid Soderblom (6 gms). None of these are current issues.
-As mentioned above, Ian Mitchell has been held out of Rockford’s past three games with a currently undisclosed ailment. Rockford has been pretty good this year at releasing injury information so now that they’ve returned from the 4-game road trip, perhaps we’ll get some word on this if Mitchell is unable to go on Friday night when Tucson visits the BMO.
–Brett Connolly sat out Tuesday’s game in Henderson, Nevada in what was described as “a night off”, citing the grind of 4 games in 5 days. With Reichel recalled to Chicago, the IceHogs were without their two top per-game point scorers. It was the first time this season Rockford skated a game without both Reichel and Connolly. They wound up winning the game 1-0 on a Josiah Slavin tally.
Mike Hardman missed the 3rd period of Saturday’s game at Tucson but was back in the lineup for both games in Nevada.
Michael Teply, who reminds me of somewhat of a young Troy Brouwer, played the 4 games in 5 nights after missing the previous three IceHogs outings with a right shoulder injury.
Blackhawks signings and other prospect movement notes
It’s that time of year.
-Blackhawks added Jaxson Stauber, son of former NHL goaltender Robb Stauber, on a two-year entry-level contract on March 23rd. Stauber signs as an undrafted-college free agent. Stauber was originally committed to Minnesota State (Mankato) but transferred to the Providence College Friars during his freshman year and played two seasons there. He turns 23 on April 27th and will forgo with senior college season. Stauber will likely wind up between the pipes with the Indy Fuel in the fall.
Stauber is another rather large goaltender the Hawks have added to their prospect pool. Drew Commesso (6’2”), Arvid Soderblom (6’3”), Dominic Basse (6’6”) and Stauber (6’3”) are all rather large men.
Basse has entered the NCAA transfer portal, stating his intent to leave Colorado College after two seasons. Basse won’t have to sit out a year under the updated NCAA transfer rules, since this will be his first transfer. No word yet on where Basse is headed. Some players enter the portal knowing where they’re headed, some enter the portal and consider their options as other universities recruit them. Basse went 10-26-3 in 41 appearances over two years with Colorado College and a 3.21 goals against and .891 save percentage. He turns 21 on April 22. Basse was a 6th round pick of the Blackhawks in 2019. Wherever he winds up, 2022-23 is an incredibly important year for Basse.
There are a lot of NCAA players entering the transfer portal right now and another reason for that is the arrival of Lindenwood University (outside St. Louis) as a Division I program next season, moving up from the ACHA. Lindenwood will continue to play their home games at the Centene Community Ice Center in Maryland Heights, which is off I-70 next to the Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre and down the street from Lambert Airport. The Centene also has a rink that serves as the St. Louis Blues practice facility. Lindenwood’s rink seats roughly 2,500. That facility, which is co-owned by the Blues, just hosted the ACHA Div 1 National Championship, which host Lindenwood Lions won, defeating Central Oklahoma in the final. Former St. Louis Blues d-man Rick Zombo will continue to serve as head coach at Lindenwood. He won ACHA championships as head coach of the Lions in 2016 and 2022. He’s been head coach of the team since 2010. Lindenwood will enter the NCAA as an independent and are working on a 20-game schedule for its inaugural season. Zombo played his college hockey at North Dakota.
Zach Dubinsky, son of former Blackhawks winger Steve Dubinsky, is transferring from R.P.I. to Michigan State. Zach just turned 22 and went undrafted. Steve’s other son, Aiden, a defenseman, is draft-eligible this summer and will attend Minnesota-Duluth in the fall. Aiden skated the past two seasons in the USHL, most recently for the Tri-City Storm (Kearney, Nebraska). He has a shot at being drafted in a later round.
The annual NCAA transfer deadline is May 1.
-The Hawks haven’t made this official as of this writing, but SportBladet in Sweden is reporting the Blackhawks have signed 23-year old defenseman Filip Roos to a contract. Unclear if this is an NHL or AHL deal. Either way, throw Roos into the mix to contend for a spot on Rockford’s blue line next season.
Filip Roos
Roos is a 6’4” left-shot blue liner who had 1 goal and 5 assists in 50 games with Skelleftea AIK in the Swedish Hockey League this season. He averaged 15:37 of ice time overall, which puts him 6th among Skelleftea blue liners, though his minutes exceeded that average often on the back half of this season. For comparison, Blackhawks prospect Michael Krutil, who began this season on the IceHogs blueline but signed with the Vaxjo Lakers in the Swedish Hockey League in January, had 5 assists, no goals in 21 games played for Vaxjo. Roos skated his two previous seasons in Sweden’s ‘B’ league and had better offensive numbers. I’d like to see Krutil back in Rockford next year as well.
-Finally, the NCAA Frozen Four is this weekend in Boston.
Thursday April 7, 2022
#4 Denver vs #1 Michigan – 4pm central – ESPN2
#6 Minnesota vs #2 Minnesota State – 7:30 central – ESPNU
Saturday April 9, 2022
Championship Game – 7:30pm central – ESPN
No Blackhawks prospects on any of the Final Four teams this go-around, but Denver has a couple of Chicago area products – defenseman Sean Behrens (Avs) and forward Jack Devine (draft eligible).
Twitter @ChrisBlock
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