Thursday likely will mark Connor Bedard’s first time skating inside the United Center, first time playing in front of a sizable number of Blackhawks fans and first time facing largely NHL-caliber competition.
Thursday also likely will mark up-and-coming goalie prospect Drew Commesso’s first time inside the United Center, big summer addition Taylor Hall’s first time wearing a Hawks jersey, top defensive prospect Kevin Korchinski’s third time facing NHL-caliber competition and so forth.
Sure, the game against the Blues taking place Thursday is merely the Hawks’ preseason opener. The Hawks’ road games against the Wild and Red Wings this weekend and home games against those same two rivals next week will all merely be preseason games, as well.
But this preseason nonetheless feels significantly more meaningful and interesting than usual.
For the players forming the franchise’s next generation — all of whom need to accumulate as much NHL experience as possible as quickly as possible — as well as for fans clamoring for their first glimpses of these potential future stars, there’s actually quite a bit of anticipation for these six exhibitions over the next 10 days.
“We had two scrimmage days, and the adrenaline was there at the beginning of the scrimmage, and then it teetered at the end,” coach Luke Richardson said Wednesday. “So they’re ready for a game. [They] want to play against someone else except themselves.”
Because of all their new pieces — and the resulting need for ample off-the-bat practice time to acclimate to Richardson’s systems and each other — the Hawks pushed their preseason schedule later in training camp than normal this year. Every other NHL team already has played at least one game; the Blues have played three.
The win-loss results, of course, won’t matter much more than they typically do, but the performances of the Hawks’ young studs will be worth analyzing. (It’s a good thing the win-loss results won’t matter much, considering the Hawks are 8-13-3 in preseason games since 2018.)
Richardson hasn’t 100% committed yet to a specific lineup, but based on Wednesday’s practice groupings, Bedard is expected to play.
He would center what likely will be the Hawks’ opening-night first line between Hall and Ryan Donato. And they would play the entire game — this isn’t the NFL.
“Me being a guy coming in that hasn’t tested himself against those players, it’s pretty big to get in that environment and see how you feel,” Bedard said.
Barring any surprises, Lukas Reichel is expected to play, showing off his newfound confidence and strength and centering what likely will be the Hawks’ opening-night second line between Andreas Athanasiou and Philipp Kurashev.
And Korchinski is expected to play, too. He has arguably more riding on his performance than anyone, considering he sits right on the cusp of proving his NHL readiness. He would skate alongside Connor Murphy, forming what might be the Hawks’ opening-night second pairing — below Seth Jones and another highly anticipated rookie in Wyatt Kaiser.
Young defensemen Alex Vlasic and Nolan Allan — two more guys who, regardless of how much time they spend in the NHL vs. the AHL this season, represent big pieces for the future — also are expected to play.
And either Thursday or as the preseason wears on, other notable prospects such as Commesso, Colton Dach, Gavin Hayes, Paul Ludwinski, Samuel Savoie, Martin Misiak, Nick Lardis, Marcel Marcel, Ethan Del Mastro and Isaak Phillips will get some run.
“You want to feel good about your game individually,” Jones said. “It’s also important from a team aspect to get your system down, to know what you’re doing in every situation on the ice. It’s a time to ask questions and figure things out.”
Special teams will be a particularly big preseason focus for the Hawks because they’re harder to simulate in practice.
The Hawks’ diamond-shaped penalty-kill formation doesn’t give Bedard much space or opportunity on the power play to come off the half-wall, skate downhill toward the net and unleash a shot, Jones pointed out as an example. But against other teams’ formations, Bedard will acquire a better sense of what he can and can’t get away with against professional defenders.
And if he manages to score in one of those situations Thursday, it will certainly feel significant — even though it won’t officially count as his first NHL goal.
“We’ll see how Connor does,” Richardson said. “He looks really good with Hall and Donato, but . . . [when] you see them in a real game with a real power play or real penalty-killing units that mesh well together, that’s going to really tell.”
NOTE: The Hawks announced that their alternate captains this season will be defensemen Seth Jones and Connor Murphy and forwards Nick Foligno and Corey Perry.
