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Blackhawks Bits: Coaching staff additions, cable broadcast resolutions and more!

A quick recap of all the Blackhawks news from the last week.

Posted on by L_B_R
Credit: Talia Sprague-Imagn Images

Time for a rundown of all the Blackhawks-related news items from the week.

In news that will make cable owners happy: Chicago Sports Network and Comcast have reached a deal, resolving a standoff between the new broadcast home of the Blackhawks (plus the Bulls and White Sox) and the city’s primary cable provider. CHSN is expected to officially launch on Comcast on Friday on the Ultimate tier, which is an additional of $20 per month. The news was first reported by Jeff Agrest of the Sun-Times on Thursday:

A few other bits of news related to team personnel also dropped throughout this past week.

First, the Blackhawks named a few more addition to coach staffs in the organization:

On Sunday, Jared Nightingale was announced as the head coach of the Rockford IceHogs. He was most recently the head coach and Director of Hockey Operations for the South Carolina Stingrays in the ECHL this past season. He previously served as an assistant coach in Rockford from 2021 to 2024.

Mike Vellucci was named an assistant coach for the Blackhawks, after spending the past five seasons in the same role with the Pittsburgh Penguins. It’d been rumored he would be joining the Blackhawks staff but the Blackhawks made it official on Monday.

The full Blackhawks coaching staff is:

Speaking of coaches, new head coach Jeff Blashill sat down to talk with hockey insiders John Shannon and Daren Millard on the “100% Hockey” podcast. He touched more on the timeline and some of the topics brought up during the Blackhawks interview process, reiterated what he learned as an assistant with the Tampa Bay Lightning, and more. The interview starts around the 8:20 mark.

Next, on Tuesday, the Blackhawks announced the expansion to the Fifth Third Arena, which is expected to be completed in January 2026. The expansion will add training facilities and community hockey space along with two new arenas, one of which will have a 2,000-person capacity and be the new home for the USHL’s Chicago Steel starting in the 2026-27 season. The Wirtz Corporation purchased the Steel in July 2023, so moving them to a Wirtz-owned facility was not totally unexpected. The Blackhawks Hall of Fame will also be housed at Fifth Third Arena.

It was also confirmed on Tuesday that the Blackhawks’ signing rights to a handful of players had officially lapsed on June 1, including Marcel Marcel, who has been playing with the Rockford IceHogs the past two seasons on an AHL contract.

Thursday was the next big news drop day: the NHL Draft Combine is currently taking place in Buffalo, so little tidbits have been trickling out, and Blackhawks GM Kyle Davidson met with the media briefly in the evening. The combine provides physical and medical assessments of the top prospects eligible, and also gives NHL teams an opportunity to conduct interviews and meet with prospects directly.

A quick tweet from Sharks’ beat reporter Sheng Peng early Thursday morning raised some eyebrows for Blackhawks fans when it was revealed that Michael Misa, one of the top prospects in the 2025 NHL Draft, was not scheduled to dine with the Blackhawks. Davidson cleared this up when he spoke with the media Thursday night, stating that the Blackhawks weren’t taking any players out to dinner this draft.

Both Ben Pope of the Sun-Times and Scott Powers of The Athletic provided good in-depth coverage of what Davidson said. A quick summary of some key points of interest:

  • The Blackhawks internal board that ranks draft prospects isn’t final at this point in time unlike the previous two years.
  • Davidson isn’t opposed to drafting a player with a “different skill set, that are more of a complementary piece” than the elite skaters they have most recently. This is likely in reference to the question surrounding Porter Martone’s skating.
  • Powers thinks the Blackhawks are most interested in Anton Frondell and Caleb Desnoyers if Misa is already off the board.
  • The Blackhawks see Connor Bedard and Frank Nazar as centers in the future.
  • Davidson is skeptical about the unrestricted free agent market and would prefer to target young, NHL-ready — or close — players instead. This doesn’t mean they won’t talk to some of the bigger named free agents available (such as Mitch Marner, who will be touched on in more depth below), but that the move has to be “make sense” for him to pull the trigger.

Marner is definitely the biggest fish this offseason, and of course Blackhawks fans are interested to know if their team is going to possibly swing for him. Powers mentioned in his last update report Thursday that the Blackhawks are open to bringing in Marner but only for the right price. It sounds like the Blackhawks don’t think the addition of a big name player is automatically necessary at the moment:

“As much as they like Marner, they don’t see him — or any unrestricted free agent — as an essential piece to add, considering where they are in their rebuild. He isn’t the Brian Campbell or Marián Hossa that puts them over the top… the Blackhawks don’t believe there’s enough upside in making Marner one of the league’s highest-paid players.”

Powers followed up on his podcast with Mark Lazerus basically saying the Blackhawks were out of Marner completely: “From every indication I have, the Blackhawks aren’t going to go after Mitch Marner. They’ve already made their minds up.”

Last, Davidson talked briefly about the ongoing discussion with their own pending UFA, Ryan Donato. The Blackhawks have until July 1 to get a deal done before Donato is free to test the market.

Jay Zawaski of CHGO went over some recently signed players that could give fans an idea of what type of deal Donato may be looking for:

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