Blackhawks Training Camp Eve Mailbag Blog Is LIVE
That tweet from the Hawks is from today. Ice is going down at the UC. Opening Night in Prague is in 23 days. Less than a month. You’re going to blink and there will be a chill in the air and hockey on tv and all will be right with the world again. Nothing better than October. Hope springs eternal. Even for the Blackhawks. It’s time to basically guess at a lot of the lingering questions still out there after another long and miserable off-season. I put out the call for questions and you all answered
Ideally…neither? I don’t like either one, but neither one of these guys should be a lock for an NHL roster. If they’re playing regular minutes again this season then something went wrong. What I really want to happen is for Boqvist to be so good out of the gates that Dahlstrom and/or Koekkoek goes on waivers. Right now the Blackhawks have 8 defensemen. I think they’ll keep all eight at the NHL level because while they might prefer to carry 14 forwards and 7 defensemen, they have more waiver exempt guys up front. I personally like Dahlstrom slightly more. It’s a meatball take but I can’t get that Koekkoek meltdown with the playoffs on the line out of my head.
I was done with him on Feb 7, 2019 and I am still done with him.
I am just going to give you my dream lineup and not what I actually think will happen
Sikura-Toews-Kane
Debrincat-Strome-Caggiula
Saad-Dach-Shaw
Perlini-Zack Smith-Carpenter
Keith-Boqvist
De Haan-Murphy
Gustafsson-Seabrook
I want a team with more bite. I want Drake Caggiula in the lineup every night. I like the idea of Carpenter and Smith on the 4th line together and Perlini giving that line some gas. I REALLY want Dach and Boqvist to undeniably earn jobs and be every night players. That is the best case scenario. Kampf will be in the mix, but if he never plays another game for the Blackhawks again I wouldn’t care at all.
I know people will probably ask where Kubalik is and who knows…he could be on the top line instead of Sikura. I just haven’t seen enough from him because sorry, I don’t really follow the Swiss league that closely. I like what I saw from Sikura last year despite not potting any goals. I know he was supposedly working out with Gary Roberts in the summer. If he comes back stronger and better on the boards then I think he is a lock for a top 9 spot. Maybe it’s Perlini that gets bumped out of the competition on the wings. Maybe Nylander asserts himself. The battle between those four guys(Perlini, Sikura, Kubalik, and Nylander) will be the most fascinating to watch. All four guys are probably good enough to play in the NHL every night. At least two of them won’t be though.
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I don’t see how Maatta fits in here. You want a shut down pair. I think your best bet is to put DeHaan with Murphy and give them the tough matchups. But if you do that then it means that you’re likely going to leave Seabrook with Maatta and that just CAN NOT happen because those dudes are fringe NHL skaters at best right now. The Hawks have better pieces on defense than in the past, but I feel like the don’t really fit together. I’d also be fine if they just traded Gustafsson somewhere and cleared a path for Boqvist. Would’ve been really nice if they cleared a path for Jokiharju by trading Gustafsson but I digress.
It’s not a championship team, still. That is frustrating, but it is better than what we’ve been seeing here in Chicago the past couple of years. They have a minimum of 25 guys who are good enough to be in the NHL. That is not something you could say last year. So I guess…C+
They’re not going to sign before the season. If Debrincat goes for 40+ goals and Strome goes for 80+ points then the Hawks could be in trouble. I hope they can get both back for a combined $15M but I have no idea.
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I’d love to see a couple of bodies moved out for assets. Gustafsson is definitely the most trade-able guy. I don’t like him. I think everyone knows that by now. The Hawks definitely won’t be able to re-sign after this season so they should be looking to trade him since they have 8 defensemen now not counting Boqvist and they also have guys who should be borderline ready for the next level soon like Dennis Gilbert and Ian Mitchell.
I hope there are no pitchforks. I think the Blackhawks should be better. I don’t know if they’re a playoff team, but when the dust settled it’s hard to look at the job Stan did this summer and be thrilled. I don’t like Maatta. The Jokiharju trade could end up being REALLY bad if he’s good in Buffalo and Nylander is in Rockford all year and…..I have a sneaky feeling that Robin Lehner is going to be just okay. Crawford is better. Lehner looked great playing in front of a Barry Trotz team, but so do a lot of goalies. He’s not great against high danger chances and the Hawks give up a SHIT ton of those in recent years. That’s not a good recipe. So between Lehner and Maatta, that’s $9M that could’ve been used elsewhere. I’d rather have Jake Gardiner than Maata at basically the same price. Adding Dzingel would’ve been nice. Keeping Jokiharju would’ve been nice. It might again just be about asset management, over-paying, and missing the playoffs while you’ve got your two greatest players in the history of the franchise at their absolute peaks. There’s nobody left to blame. No more excuses. If this team is in trouble at Thanksgiving then I think we march.