The Chicago Blackhawks were back on the ice for practice on Wednesday, with the team’s top prospect among them.
On Tuesday evening, the Blackhawks announced that 2020 first-round pick Lukas Reichel had been recalled from the Rockford IceHogs and he spent Wednesday’s practice skating on the team’s second line with a pair of Chicago’s No. 3 overall picks.
Reichel on a line with Toews and Dach in practice. Interesting.
— Scott Powers (@ByScottPowers) April 6, 2022
The more interesting part of that line combination is that Toews is in the center with Reichel and Dach on his wings. All three players are primarily centers by trade although Reichel and Dach’s futures there could be debated. Certainly something to watch going forward.
Here were the rest of the line combinations from practice:
#Blackhawks lines at practice:
DeBrincat-Strome-Kane
Reichel-Toews-Dach
Kubalik-T. Johnson-Raddysh
Katchouk-R. Johnson-Lafferty— Charlie Roumeliotis (@CRoumeliotis) April 6, 2022
Here’s a comment from coach Derek King on playing Reichel on the wing:
Derek King isn’t sure if Reichel will spend the rest of the season with the Blackhawks, but “he’s here, I’ll play him, put him in different situations.”
He’s trying him on the wing with Toews and Dach so he doesn’t have to worry so much about playing down low.
— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) April 6, 2022
And here’s Reichel talking after practice:
Lukas Reichel meets with the media pic.twitter.com/e4ANEf78Dz
— Scott Powers (@ByScottPowers) April 6, 2022
A fifth line of Philipp Kurashev, MacKenzie Entwistle and Henrik Borgstrom was also together at practice, making up what could probably be called the “healthy scratchy for the next game” line.
In other news on Wednesday, the Blackhawks released a new structure for their season ticket packages, with some decreases reported. A few details follow from Chicago Tribune reporter Phillip Thompson:
Lot of breakdown about the new Blackhawks season ticket structure that I’ll dissect later but one big thing is some packages will go down in price by 20%.
— Phillip Thompson (@_phil_thompson) April 6, 2022
Other big takeaways from Blackhawks tickets briefing:
+ no requirement to buy preseason games
* “Pick ‘Em” membership breaks down into 5, 10 and 20 games.
— Phillip Thompson (@_phil_thompson) April 6, 2022
Ben Pope of the Chicago Sun-Times also has more information available in this article.
One other news item to share this Wednesday: according to this Swedish media report (and interpreted in English via Google Translate), the Blackhawks are “in agreement” with Swedish defenseman Filip Roos. The 23-year-old blue-liner appeared in 50 games with Skelleftea in Swedish’s top division of hockey, scoring one goal with five assists. In three playoff games, Roos had an assist.