Following Tuesday’s disastrous preseason game in Minnesota, the Blackhawks sent another handful of players to the Rockford IceHogs with some notable names among the group that will be starting the season in the AHL.
A pair of first round picks in forward Frank Nazar and defenseman Kevin Korchinski were sent to the IceHogs on Wednesday morning along with defenseman Louis Crevier. Chicago also sent 2024 third-rounder AJ Spellacy back to his OHL team, the Windsor Spitfires.
That move leaves the Blackhawks with two youngsters on the blue line, one of whom is a bit of a surprise:
Isaak Phillips seemed to have a decent shot at being in the mix by the end of training camp but Nolan Allan, a 2021 first-round pick (32nd overall) appears in line for his NHL debut. Wyatt Kaiser shouldn’t need too long to get into game shape and, with Phillips’ contract not being waiver-exempt, Allan could still end up in Rockford in the not-too-distant future. Or perhaps Kaiser is sent to Rockford to start the season and Allan gets a longer look at the NHL level. We’ll see on that.
But the main attraction here is the demotion of both Korchinski and Nazar, the No. 7 and No. 13 overall picks, respectively, from the 2022 NHL Draft. A substantial part of the intrigue for the opening weeks of the season was the potential of getting a closer look at Nazar in NHL games and seeing if Korchinski was prepared to take steps forward from his up-and-down rookie season. This says nothing about the long-term developments of either player, who should still very much be considered significant pieces of the puzzle here. This just removes a healthy dose of what was hopefully going to make this season a little more interesting to watch than the 2023-24 version of it. Instead, the early portions of this season will feature a veteran-laden lineup that played oh so well in Minnesota on Tuesday night. Can’t wait!
Also, as Ben Pope from the Sun-Times pointed out on Twitter Wednesday morning, the decision on Nazar was not made recently:
Hasn’t been a very encouraging 24 hours for this hockey team. We’ll see if the regular season brings some most positive developments, because it’s hard to locate many of those right now.