Blackhawks opening night lineup taking shape

When the Chicago Blackhawks took the ice on Thursday, they were split into two very distinct groups. There was little doubt that head coach Jeff Blashill used the day off to evaluate the remaining players in camp. He split his roster into two groups: one that appears to be the squad that will break camp with the team, and the other that will head west on I-90 towards Rockford after this weekend.

Team 2 is Not an Automatic Trip to the AHL

“Team 2” was the first on the ice this morning. The group was primarily composed of American Hockey League players. It did include forward Nick Lardis and defensemen Kevin Korchinski and Nolan Allan. However, there are still five preseason games and plenty of practice time to convince the coaching staff to keep them in Chicago.

“I decided to try and ramp it up a little bit to get to a group of guys who are competing more for NHL jobs and not necessarily spread the two teams out,” Blashill said about the two groups. “We probably have more good players than spots, and there were some guys in that second group who are still going to be competing for NHL jobs, and they may be moved into that first group tomorrow. We have to go through the groups right now. I definitely want to get it to a spot where it’s guys who are competing for those NHL spots, and we may flip some guys in and out.”

Lardis making the team out of training camp would be a big surprise. He definitely needs some time in Rockford to adjust to the professional game. Allan and Korchinski are in the group of young defenders trying to cement themselves in the NHL. However, there are more bodies than open spots. Either of them playing big minutes in the AHL is not a disaster, nor a declaration that they are failures. Development isn’t linear, and some players need more time than others, especially on the blue line.

Opening Night Lines Look Set

Blashill said that some veterans will likely play one more preseason game than usual because of the new systems being installed.

“Coming into this, depending on your age, you're playing somewhere between three and four exhibition games, which is a pretty good number. If this were our fourth year together, Nick Foligno may only play two, but he’ll probably play three because everything’s new. Same with Connor Murphy, guys like that. They’re probably all playing one more game than we would in most cases, to give them another game to get to where we can hit the ground running against Florida.”

Based on what we’ve seen recently, Blashill seems to have his opening night combinations in mind. I wouldn’t say they are set in stone, but this is a good idea of the team that will take the ice against the Florida Panthers on Oct. 7.

Forwards

Ryan Donato-Connor Bedard-Andre Burakovsky
Teuvo Teravainen-Frank Nazar-Tyler Bertuzzi
Landon Slaggert-Jason Dickinson-Ilya Mikeyev
Colton Dach-Nick Foligno-Sam Lafferty

Defensemen

Alex Vlasic-Sam Rinzel
Wyatt Kaiser-Artyom Levshunov
Ethan Del Mastro-Connor Murphy

This leaves battles for the extra spots on the roster. NHL teams can carry up to 23 players as long as they are salary cap compliant. Most teams will carry two extra forwards and a seventh defenseman. Ryan Greene, Oliver Moore, and Lukas Reichel are in the running for those spots. The seventh defenseman will either be Louis Crevier or Matt Grzelcyk, if he earns a contract.

Blashill doesn’t have his mind made up, but some of the youngsters are going to have to do some serious impressing, and fast.