The last time Dylan Sikura donned a Blackhawks sweater, he was a floundering prospect failing to translate his collegiate stardom to the NHL.
Two and a half years later, Sikura is back with the Hawks. But he’s not exactly the same Sikura.
“I’m a different player,” he said. “I’ve matured a lot from my first couple years pro. [When] you go through the ringer, you learn a lot about yourself.”
When Sikura turned pro in 2018, expectations were high. He’d churned out 111 points in 73 games and during his junior and senior years at Northeastern, where he was a Hobey Baker Award finalist. He was considered one of the Hawks’ top forward prospects.
Those high hopes never panned out, though. Sikura spent three seasons bouncing back and forth between the AHL and NHL, producing plenty of points in Rockford but very few in Chicago.
He infamously went 43 games without a goal before breaking the drought in January 2020, and he made just three more Hawks appearances after that. A trade to the Golden Knights that fall ended his tenure after just one goal and 13 assists.
One of then-general manager Stan Bowman and then-coach Jeremy Colliton’s biggest concerns about Sikura—and perhaps the most logical explanation for his struggles—was his inability to crash the net. At 5-11, 166 pounds, he didn’t have the necessary strength to fend off NHL-caliber defensemen and establish his presence in the most dangerous areas of the ice.
“My first year, I don’t think I even went to the net at all,” he said. “Being able to box guys out and having confidence in your body [is so important]. I lacked that a little bit. I was getting pushed around or shying away from some of those spaces because I knew I couldn’t win those battles.
“At the time, Jeremy still trusted me to be on the ice when I [was] not producing. That was one of my strongest suits. I was finding some parts of my game, but missing the element I was more used to.”
The trade to Vegas served as a wake-up call. Since then, Sikura, now 27, has added 15 to 20 pounds and accepted his future might be as more of a grinding depth forward.
He racked up 33 goals and 73 points in 60 games for the Colorado Eagles last season, ranking seventh in the AHL in scoring, before watching the Avalanche’s Stanley Cup run as a healthy scratch.
“I had a good year in the minors,” he said. “Obviously it was a different league, but I think I can transition some of that to this level now.”
He was initially surprised to see a familiar name—Mark Bernard, who functions as the IceHogs’ GM—pop up on his phone this summer, but he soon realized a reunion made sense for both parties.
Sikura would like to prove he’s finally worthy of a call-up, and the rebuilding Hawks offer one of the relatively easiest roads to NHL playing time. Meanwhile, the Hawks want forward depth and for Rockford to be a Calder Cup contender. They signed a number of experienced AHL stars—including Sikura, Brett Seney, Buddy Robinson, Luke Philp and Adam Clendening—with that in mind.
New Hawks coach Luke Richardson previously wasn’t familiar with Sikura but has been impressed by his “confidence with the puck” so far in training camp. And indeed, that new confidence—accompanying his new muscle—differentiates this Sikura from his previous iteration.
“It was a little weird at the start, but it’s nice to not feel overwhelmed when you come to a new team,” Sikura said. “[With] a little more corner weight and the heavier parts of my game, hopefully I can find that scoring touch I was missing here.”
