Veteran defenseman Matt Grzelcyk joined the team in an unofficial capacity last month, signing a professional tryout contract with the team ahead of training camp. Now he appears to be part of the team for real after multiple media reports on Sunday morning indicated that Grzelcyk has signed a one-year contract with the team for the upcoming season. According to Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic, it’s a one-year, $1 million deal.
The Blackhawks have signed defenseman Matt Grzelcyk after having him on a PTO in camp. What that means for the Blackhawks and their young defensemen: www.nytimes.com/athletic/669…
— Scott Powers (@scottpowers.bsky.social) October 5, 2025 at 10:25 AM
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Grzelcyk, who’ll turn 32 in January, is coming off a career-high 40-point season (1 G, 39 A) with the Pittsburgh Penguins after playing all 82 games and averaging 20:37 of ice time per night — another career-high. He was especially productive on the power play, where 15 of his assists were tallied. He’s a veteran of 527 games across nine seasons, with the first eight coming in Boston after that team drafted him in the third round (85th overall) in the 2012 NHL Draft.
Racking up those points for one of the worst teams in the league apparently wasn’t enough to earn Grzelcyk a contract offer in the summer, though, leading to his PTO from the Blackhawks. Expect him to hover near the bottom of the Chicago D rotation and perhaps be the odd man out at times as the No. 7 blue-liner while possibly filling in on the power play at times when he’s in the lineup.
Matt Grzelcyk is getting a PTO with Chicago; one of the few placed he might still be able to crack the roster.
— Micah McCurdy (@hockeyviz.com) September 16, 2025 at 7:21 AM
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Grzelcyk played well enough during the preseason and could be a serviceable body on the Blackhawks blue line this season. The issue here, though, is that there were multiple young defenseman who could’ve played well enough to earn this roster spot instead — and none of them did that. With Grzelcyk now in the fold, the other six blue-liners in Chicago will likely be Alex Vlasic, Connor Murphy, Sam Rinzel, Wyatt Kaiser, Artyom Levshunov and Louis Crevier. The trio headed to Rockford for the start of the season appear to be Kevin Korchinski, Nolan Allan and Ethan Del Mastro.
It doesn’t mean that anyone from that trio should be counted of the Blackhawks’ long-term picture, it just means a little more patience is going to required in hopes that their massive steps forward into NHL roles will come to fruition eventually.