Hockey’s almost back, with the surest sign yet being the Blackhawks first official practice of the season on Thursday morning. There’s also a preseason game in two days and a regular season game in 12 days. Better get yourself into midseason form quick, folks.
And start by arguing about line combinations!
Blackhawks lines and pairings Kantserov-Nazar-Kane Lardis-Frondell-Bertuzzi Donato-Moore-Mangiapane/Teräväinen Greenway/Slaggert-Greene-Smith Vlasic-Byram Kaiser-Levshunov Cole-Rinzel Korchinski-Del Mastro
— Scott Powers (@scottpowers.bsky.social) September 17, 2026 at 10:02 AM
That was the main group on the ice Thursday morning and there’s probably not much to complain about here, right? At least not yet. With the first game of the regular season now inside of two weeks out, it’s fair to conclude that the lineup on the ice in Vegas that night will look pretty similar to that. The question is what it’ll look like by the end of that game, and then the start of Game 2, and on and on.
Let’s go to some video clips, starting with one of that top line that features a nifty backhand pass from Kantserov all the way across the ice to Kane before the play ultimately ends on a Nazar pass to Kane for a goal:
Frank Nazar to Patrick Kane = 🚨
— Charlie Roumeliotis (@CRoumeliotis) September 17, 2026
This will be a fun early duo to watch. #Blackhawks pic.twitter.com/z9JcQfmkRf
This goes on the list of things that would be great to never see again:
Donato got crushed by Arty 😭 @bedsysburner98 pic.twitter.com/Lw34TrQBxI
— BHF (@BlackhawksFocus) September 17, 2026
Artyom Levshunov and Ryan Donato going opposite directions on a one-way street should probably be avoided.
How about some Anton Frondell iso-cam, courtesy of @BlackhawksFocus on Twitter?
Anton Frondell: pic.twitter.com/MCSkbA7L9P
— BHF (@BlackhawksFocus) September 17, 2026
Here are some comments from Blashill on the line combos, which focuses on the top line a bit and then appears to be suggesting the fourth line could be getting something like a defense-oriented, shutdown assignment.
Blashill on Kantserov-Nazar-Kane:
— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) September 17, 2026
"Patrick is a super high IQ hockey player [with] a lot of give-and-go to his game. Both Frankie and Roman can play some of that give-and-go game with him; they think it a little bit the same way. Historically, when Patrick has had a center that… https://t.co/TR9jbf7hXT
Blashill on Smith-Greene-Greenway:
— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) September 17, 2026
"We’d like to have a line…that has some physicality, some toughness, but also are accountable enough players that they go out and eat minutes against the best players in the league. That’s a hard thing to find, but we think we have the… https://t.co/TR9jbf7hXT
The D pairings may need a little more work before their finalized, though, and there could still be some changes once the games count for real:
Blashill: "Our D pairings, we still have to figure that out. There could be some fluidity, even within games. With [Byram], he’s comfortable on the right. Most players would rather play their normal side if everything was equal, but you don’t always fall into that spot." https://t.co/TR9jbf7hXT
— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) September 17, 2026
Obviously Connor Bedard was not involved in practice on Thursday but his name did come up in conversations, of course:
Chicago GM Kyle Davidson on Connor Bedard's recovery process: "We've got a nice plan moving forward and we're progressing through that plan over the next number of weeks. Ahead of schedule, behind schedule — all that will be determined much further along in this process. The good…
— Charlie Roumeliotis (@CRoumeliotis) September 17, 2026