Chicago Blackhawks Call Ups Just In Time For Camp

Mar 25, 2012; Chicago, IL, USA; Chicago Blackhawks defenseman Nick Leddy (8) skates with the puck against the Nashville Predators during the first period at the United Center. Mandatory Credit: Rob Grabowski-USA TODAY Sports

CBA ratified check, now training camp begins less than 24 hours later. The Chicago Blackhawks start the super abbreviated training camp today at noon at Johnny’s Ice house where the players have been having informal practices headed by the Captain Jonathan Toews.  Twitter reports have been out there that Toews looks better than ever with no apparent lingering effects of last season’s concussion.

The Blackhawks announced that they recalled seven players from Rockford to join the team for training camp.  Some of these were a given yet I do see one surprise. The call ups were Andrew Shaw, Brandon Bollig, Brandon Saad, Brandon Pirri, Marcus Kruger, Nick Leddy, and Ryan Stanton.

Of all the call ups Brandon Pirri is having the best season for the Rockford Ice Hogs having scored 10 goals and 16 assists, while Marcus Kruger hopefully benefited from the playing time in Rockford scoring 8 goals and 14 assists.

Brandon Saad after a slow start in Rockford which was aided by an early lingering injury has played well of late with a total of 8 goals and 12 assists.  Everyone’s favorite boxer on skates Brandon Bollig actually has a career high 5 goals while piling up a team high 157 penalty minutes while playing for the Icehogs this season.

Nick Leddy was of course going to get the call up, but I was surprised to see that Ryan Stanton received the call to join the club today at noon.  Stanton stats speak for themselves having the Hogs best plus/minus at +7 it’s just that of the names being thrown around he wasn’t ever spoken of getting a training camp invite in the past two weeks.

The Blackhawks will have 15 forwards, 9 defenseman and a Crawford and a Emery at the beginning of training camp today.  After all the lockout talk it’s hard to believe we are only six days and a flight to LA away from the start of the Blackhawks 2013 season!

Let’s Go Hawks!!

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