Kevin Korchinski's Blackhawks contract extension brings new opportunity to establish himself

The Chicago Blackhawks announced that they re-signed defenseman Kevin Korchinski to a two-year ($1.325M cap hit) contract.

This news was on the horizon as the 22 year old was given a qualifying offer in June, and getting Korchinski re-signed was another checkmark off of their to-do list.

Now, that the deal is signed, all eyes will be on how Korchinski develops in his fourth year.

Korchinski can continue to trend upward with new deal

Re-signing Korchinski was a no-brainer for the Blackhawks. Even though he had his ups and downs in his development, going into his fourth season, the Blackhawks are still waiting to see what they have in their former seventh overall pick.

As general manager Kyle Davidson said at the trade deadline, "I think we need to get Kevin minutes and keep getting him minutes, because we have seen some really nice strides, and we want to keep that positive momentum going into the offseason. But we're big fans of Kevin. He's got a ton of upside, a ton of ability. He's still raw. He's still getting into the pro game and learning through that process and that development process, but he's someone that we really like (and) we have a lot of time for."

This deal reminds me of what the Blackhawks did for Wyatt Kaiser last season, as Kaiser signed a two-year deal before training camp. The two years give Korchinski some stability as he looks to make a name for himself on the team's d-core.

Next season will look different for him, as our Ryan McGregor pointed out in his latest, because he is no longer waiver-exempt. So, even though he spent the majority of the last two seasons with the Rockford IceHogs, that won't be the case for him next season.

The time he spent in Rockford could turn out to have been an asset for Korchinski, giving him the playing time and experience he needed, and he will lean on that experience going into training camp.

The defense will include Korchinski, Kaiser, Bowen Byram, Alex Vlasic, Sam Rinzel, Artyom Levshunov, Ian Cole, and Ethan Del Mastro (when he re-signs), so he will have some healthy competition to earn a consistent spot in the defense pairings. But he has been preparing for it this summer. As he told Ben Pope of the Chicago Sun-Times back in April, he was planning on staying in Chicago for the summer to train.

Therefore, it will be good to see how his summer training went, as he will be motivated to take that next step. The Blackhawks are ready to see what he can bring in a full NHL season after getting the development time he got.

Now, he has the security of the new contract to do so. Like Davidson said, Korchinski is still very young, but his offensive defenseman skill set can translate nicely on the Blackhawks' defense.

He just has to play to his ability, and training camp will be the next big opportunity to show it.

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