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Blackhawks AHL Prospect Update, 4/28: Final season evaluations

One last look from this season at Chicago’s prospects in Rockford.

Posted on by L_B_R
Source: Rockford IceHogs (Kristin Ostrowski)

The Rockford IceHogs season came to a quiet close a little over a week ago. What started as a middling season gradually slipped into the IceHogs trending downward for most of the year. They never found a stretch of sustained consistency and each attempt to stabilize things seemed to be followed by another dip. Rockford finished dead last in the Central Division with just 61 points, posting a 28-39-3-2 record.

This marked the first time the IceHogs have missed the playoffs since the 2018-19 season — with the obvious asterisk that there were no playoffs in 2019-20 and only the Pacific Division participated in 2020-21. Still, this is the first “true” miss in a normal postseason structure in several years, driven by a mix of higher-end prospects graduating and the remaining AHL group being unable to make up the difference.

Speaking of the prospect side of things, there isn’t a ton to dig into this update. A wave of late-season call-ups to the Blackhawks thinned out the roster, so there wasn’t a clear standout. It’s a season that ends more with a shrug than anything else: a slow slide down the standings and a relatively quiet prospect year as the best moved on to the NHL quickly and often.

Note: For this report, any player under 25 at the start of the season and with an NHL contract will be considered a Blackhawks prospect. Additionally, a skater will need to have hit 10 games (so no Nick Lardis, Ethan Del Mastro or Kevin Korchinski) and a goalie five with the IceHogs to be included.

Forwards

Gavin Hayes (LW/RW)

Stats: 26 points (13 G, 13 A), 14 PIM in 57 games

Hayes took a step forward in Rockford this season, even if it stopped short of anything resembling a full breakout. With a chunk of higher-end prospects graduating out of the lineup, Hayes saw more opportunity and made decent use of it: his offensive production ticked up as he moved into a larger role, and down the stretch he was one of the most consistent contributors. Over his final 12 games, Hayes put up 7 points (4 G, 3 A), essentially maintaining that 0.58–0.59 points-per-game pace he’d been hovering around since mid-November.

One interesting note: a lot of Hayes’ goals still came from in tight, but there was noticeable improvement in his ability to score from a bit farther out and while in motion. He looked more comfortable shooting off the rush and getting pucks off quickly rather than needing everything to be set up for him. His Feb. 13 hat trick was a good snapshot of this: a mix of goals, including one off the rush and another camped out in front:

Unfortunately, his season came to an abrupt end due to an MCL injury suffered in mid-March. Hayes had already slipped a bit in the Blackhawks’ prospect pecking order, and a knee injury like that doesn’t exactly help matters. Given how narrow his path to an NHL role already was, the timing makes things a bit more complicated heading into next season.

Martin Misiak (RW)

Stats: 15 points (4 G, 11 A), 29 PIM in 63 games

Who would have thought coming into this season that Misiak would play the most games among Blackhawks prospects in the AHL? With higher-profile forwards like Oliver Moore and Nick Lardis recalled, Misiak (followed by Samuel Savoie) ended up topping the games played list among Rockford forwards, though neither logged a full season.

Misiak didn’t show much offensive growth down the stretch, finishing with just 6 points (1 G, 5 A) in his final 22 games, a 0.27 points-per-game rate that dipped slightly from his earlier pace. Offense was never expected to be his calling card, and that still holds. Most of his production comes from net-front work, without much projectable shooting or playmaking for the NHL level. Where he does bring value is with this physicality — it’s generally in a useful way, with solid effort and some defensive improvement, even if his skating still lags a bit.

At 22 in September, Misiak’s path to the NHL is pretty narrow. He’d need a bit more defensive evolution in the very near future to carve out a depth, energy-role projection, something in the mold of Brandon Bollig.

Samuel Savoie (LW/C)

Stats: 26 points (12 G, 14 A), 47 PIM in 62 games

Savoie closed his AHL season on a bit of a heater — for him, anyway — putting up nine points (3 G, 6 A) over his final 16 games, bumping his pace from 0.38 to 0.56 points per game. That’s obviously not overwhelming production and the sample isn’t the biggest, but it’s a familiar pattern where his production tends to tick up with more opportunity, even if it’s hard to project that translating long-term. While his scoring typically comes from in tight — winning battles at the front of the net — all three of his goals from this last span were slightly farther out with quick shots. It’s too bad his hands aren’t at the same level of his brain, because Savoie reads the ice well and reacts quickly when opportunities present themselves.

The rest of his profile hasn’t changed much. He’s still a high-effort, physical forward who plays bigger than his size, leaning into that gritty, disruptive style that’s drawn Andrew Shaw comparisons in the past — though that ceiling feels like a long shot now. More realistically, there’s a path to a scrappy, lower-line checking role where his edge and solid defensive instincts can be useful. He just turned 22 in March, so the timeline to making it to the NHL at all is definitely shortening.

His style also does come with risk as Savoie has dealt with his share of injuries, including missing a couple of weeks in early March this season with a lower-body issue, which continues to be part of the equation for his development.

One final note: Savoie has always been described as a great locker room guy who helps motivate others on and off the ice. One such example of the latter came to light when Kevin Korchinski was the final of the Hawks prospects promoted to the NHL this spring, and he mentioned how Savoie gave him confidence-boosting advice along the lines of, “You’re better than you think you are.” The motivational speech seemed to pay off, as Korchinski had a good individual ending to his season with the Blackhawks.

Defensemen

Jake Furlong (LD)

Stats: 9 points (3 G, 6 A), 17 PIM in 30 games

Furlong just missed the cut-off for the last update, but his role did expand somewhat as the season progressed thanks to call-ups. Acquired in January along with a 2028 fourth-round pick in the deal that sent Nolan Allan, Laurent Brossoit, and a 2028 seventh-round pick the other way, the move felt like a change-of-scenery swing specifically for Allan. Furlong is not at Allan’s level but that’s fine, given the organization already has a backlog of bottom-four defensive prospects. What Rockford really needed was an able-bodied defender, and that’s what they got.

Originally a fifth-round pick in 2022, Furlong fits a similar mold to Allan: a solid-skating, decently physical, defense-first blueliner. He doesn’t have quite the same mobility or defensive ceiling, but he’s steady enough to handle a bottom-pair role in the AHL and can move up the lineup when injuries or call-ups hit.

He does have a better shot than Allan did, though he is rarely in position to use it. Here are a couple of examples:

Furlong is signed for another season, which means one less spot to fill on Rockford’s blue line next year.

Taige Harding (LD)

Stats: 9 points (3 G, 6 A), 105 PIM in 47 games

Harding didn’t offer much offensively down the stretch, finishing with just six points (2 G, 4 A) in his final 16 games. He’s not a black hole when it comes to offense, but there’s not a lot to his game — outside of a hard shot — that lends itself to production. Not all defensemen need to contribute in this way, but the other areas of their game need to make up for that, which is not really the case here.

His game is built more around defense, where he’s generally reliable in his assignments and does his best work using his size to close gaps and win battles. That said, his reads are still a limiting factor. He’s fine in structured situations and key defensive areas, but doesn’t consistently process plays quickly enough to stand out. There’s been some incremental progress this season, but not enough to really shift his outlook — he still projects as a steady, defense-first option without a clear NHL path in the near future.

One area where Harding stands out among the IceHogs is his physicality and willingness to play a scrappy, combative game — though it doesn’t always work in his favor and can cross the line at times. Case in point: he racked up 30 penalty minutes in a single game on Feb. 28, with a first-period fight, a 10-minute misconduct for abuse of officials early in the third, then a rematch with the same opponent that ended in a game misconduct with three seconds left. As with Savoie, this style of play can lead to injuries and he had a few throughout the season, including a little over two weeks missed with a lower-body injury in the back half of March.

At the end of the season, Harding won Most Improved for the IceHogs’ team awards:

Dmitri Kuzmin (LD)

Stats: 15 points (6 G, 9 A), 11 PIM in 46 games

Kuzmin is pretty much the same story as before — a depth body for Rockford who doesn’t do much to stand out. He did put up seven points (2 G, 5 A) over his final 11 games, which looks nice on paper, but most of the assists were third-out touches and the production didn’t carry much real impact.

At this point, Kuzmin profiles more as AHL depth than someone pushing for role in the NHL, which is fine because his contract with the Blackhawks is now over and it’s unlikely they will re-sign him.

Ryan Mast (RD)

Stats: 14 points (0 G, 14 A), 18 PIM in 46 games

Mast had a solid-enough but limited season in Rockford. He was one of the more effective defenders when it came to clean zone exits, using his underrated skating and decent vision to move pucks up ice. He can hit a stretch pass and support the rush well enough, and there are flashes of intelligence in his own zone. He’s also physically capable, though he occasionally tries to force plays through contact in ways that don’t quite work.

The issue is that it didn’t translate into much production — just seven assists over his final 18 games — and that’s not entirely surprising given his underwhelming shot and lacking of quality hands. His value leans more on transition and puck movement than offense, but without stronger counting stats or standout defensive impact, he still projects more as an AHL-level defenseman than someone pushing for NHL consideration, especially as he just turned 23. His contract with the Blackhawks also ended at the conclusion of this season.

Goalies

Drew Commesso

Stats: .901 save percentage, 3.08 goals-against average in 37 games

Commesso had a mixed but generally steady season in Rockford. He settled in as the primary starter and showed improved consistency overall, tracking pucks well and handling heavier workloads better than in previous seasons. He played in 12 games since the last update, and while his save-percentage in that span ticked down so he finished with .901, that’s still well-above average for the AHL this past season.

As is typical for him, Commesso played a fairly structured, positional game that saw improved with puck tracking and lateral movement strength. He’s not overly scrambly and he does have the quickness to recover when plays break down. His rebound control can fluctuate at times, which is where things can get a little messy, but overall his style leans toward being calm and efficient rather than flashy.

Injuries are still the main concern for Commesso, as he’s yet to play a full healthy season in his young career. He’s also always been seen as the type that needed consistent playing time to get in the groove. When in that groove, it’s really high-quality play, so there’s hope that Commesso could be the backup of the future in Chicago — he certainly had at least one game already with the Blackhawks in January being a Big Damn Hero — and a decent contingency plan if Spencer Knight has his own issues.

At the end of the season, Commesso won MVP for the IceHogs’ team awards:

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