Morning Chirps: World Junior roster projections, a bevy of front office movies

We are less than two months away from opening night, which means training camp is just a few weeks away! Let’s scratch another day off the calendar with your Tuesday Morning Chirps.

Blackhawks Chirps

• The Blackhawks released their promotion schedule for the upcoming season, and I gave the best three of the lot.

• Brooke LoFurno is starting to look ahead to the 2026-27 season and pondered if Tyler Bertuzzi can repeat his career-high output from last year.

• Richard Jelinek dove into what Mike Doneghey’s new job will entail and why he got the promotion in the first place.

• The Athletic gave their World Juniors roster projections for Canada, USA, Sweden, Finland, and Czechia. The only two Blackhawks prospects they had on a roster were Finnish defenseman Samu Alalauri and Czech forward Vaclav Nestrasil. They did not have Mason West on Team USA’s roster.

NHL Chirps

• The New York Islanders named Evan Gold as an assistant general manager. His duties will include being the general manager of the team’s new AHL affiliate, the Hamilton Hammers. He’ll also be involved in contract negotiations, roster strategy, professional and amateur scouting, and salary cap management. While with the Boston Bruins, he helped negotiate contracts for Zdeno Chara, Brad Marchand, Charlie McAvoy, and David Pastrnak.

• The Toronto Maple Leafs hired Andy O’Brien as their Vice President of Sport Performance. He’ll oversee strength and conditioning, sport science, sports nutrition, injury rehabilitation, and mental performance. O’Brien built his reputation by working with Sidney Crosby and John Tavares for years.

• The executive moves didn’t stop there as the Minnesota Wild made a handful of front office hires. They hired Dan MacKinnon as assistant director of amateur scouting, Janik Beichler as a European amateur scout, and Elizabeth Hudson as executive assistant to the President/GM and hockey operations. They also promoted former defenseman Alex Goligoski to player development coach.

• Have you seen The Odyssey yet? Did you catch former NHLer Sean Avery on the screen? Peter Baugh of The Athletic caught up with Avery on his new career as one of Christopher Nolan’s go-to cast members.

• NHL Birthday Roll Call, Aug. 4: Neil Colville, Maurice Richard, Wayne Carleton, Bengt Lundholm, Ilya Sorokin, Lane Pederson, and Noah Laba.

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