Blackhawks (officially) sign Drew Commesso

A slew of media reports emerged on Monday afternoon indicating that the Chicago Blackhawks are about to sign goaltender Drew Commesso to an entry-level contract.

[UPDATE] The Blackhawks confirmed the signing on Tuesday afternoon:

Commesso, who turns 21 in July, was a second-round pick (46th overall) of the Blackhawks in the 2020 NHL Draft. He just finished his junior season at Boston University, guiding the Terriers to the Frozen Four with a 24-8 record, 2.46 goals-against average and .912 save percentage.

It looks the initial report emerged – of course – from Elliotte Friedman before other tweets rolled in:

Per Charlie Roumeliotis of NBC Sports Chicago, the contract will not begin until next season, which suggests that Commesso won’t be seeing any playing time down in Rockford.

That makes sense, given that the Rockford net is currently Arvid Sodberlom’s domain.

[UPDATE, II] Though he may not see any ice time, Rockford is where Commesso is heading:

It’ll be interesting to see how Commesso’s timeline unfolds from here, as he almost certainly will not be in Chicago on a consistent basis any time soon. As an example, Dallas drafted Jake Oettinger – another Boston U. product –  late in the first round (26th overall) in 2017. He spent the entire 2019-20 season down in the AHL before coming up to the Stars in the pandemic-shortened 2021 season – and that’s an extremely shorter path than usual.

For a Blackhawks’ comparison, Corey Crawford was a second-round pick (52nd overall) in 2003 and did not become the full-time starter until the 2010-11 season – a trajectory that would put Commesso in the NHL by 2027-28. It likely won’t take Commesso that long to reach the NHL level but the point remains that he’ll likely want to seek out housing in Rockford for a while before checking real estate listings in Chicago.