Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson covered a lot of ground when speaking with the media after the NHL Trade Deadline passed on Friday night. From his feelings about how his plan is developing to wanting to keep Ilya Mikheyev around, we hit a lot of topics.
I’m trying to do my best to present that information in relatively bite-size pieces that are relevant to what you might care about as a Blackhawks fan.
The No. 1 topic for the Blackhawks and their fans right now is the rebuild/building process that we’re living thru right now. When Kyle Davidson took over as the permanent general manager a little more than four years ago, he embarked on the most aggressive, bold building plan in the history of the franchise. We’re now starting to see the early returns and proof of concept in the likes of Frank Nazar, Oliver Moore, Ryan Greene, Sam Rinzel, Artyom Levshunov and others making an impact at the NHL level.
But the work isn’t done. And the waves of talent coming to the Blackhawks have really only begun.
Davidson spoke about some specific players in the pipeline on Friday evening, and how he views Rockford as a development step for prospects. Here’s what the Blackhawks’ general manager had to say on those topics:
Kirby Lee-Imagn ImagesWill we see Anton Frondell and/or Sacha Boisvert in Chicago before the end of the season?
“These are conversations that we’re going to have once their seasons are done. We don’t want to wish an early end to any of their seasons. We hope they have a ton of success wherever they are. We want, with our prospects, we’re always telling them just be where your feet are and have as much success as you can in those spots. But certainly conversations we’ll have when they do finish up and then we’ll see what direction they want to go.
“We don’t normally set those things up in advance unless it’s very time sensitive. For example, like with Ryan Greene last year, we had two games left I think when his season ended, so we had to act very quickly. So it had to be a bit of prep work in advance. But we try and just leave the player to play and then when the season’s done, we have those conversations with them at that time. And so a little too early to say, but I think it’d be disingenuous to say we won’t have those conversations with those players when the time comes.”
David Banks-Imagn ImagesOn Artyom Levshunov’s season and his response to a reset before the Olympics:
“I think when you do something like we did with Arty, where we took him out for a number of games — almost had like a pseudo training camp with him — that can go one of two ways. They can embrace that. They can dig in or they can pull back and maybe feel bad for themselves or feel frustrated. He really dug in. He went full throttle into the development opportunity that was presented, did everything we asked him. He went back to Florida and I know he did a lot of grinding over the break in Florida and came back and I thought the game in Utah was one of his stronger games that we’ve seen.
“Again, there’s a level of volatility with young players, especially young players in the NHL where sometimes you lose that confidence or you lose that mojo a little bit and it’s hard to get that back. And so it’s our job to figure out what’s best to get that back. Sometimes that’s Rockford. Sometimes that’s just sitting out in the NHL and with a little breather. With Arty, we determined that in his case it was best served here in the NHL with our coaches, with the development staff up here, and I believe he’s responded very well.
“Now, this is the ebbs and flows you get with young defensemen in particular, young players in general. It’s not always a linear upwards trajectory. Sometimes there’s little dips, but you hope in aggregate there are gains being made, and I feel like there certainly have been, both from a defensive physicality standpoint, his puck movement, his comfort level on the ice. I think coming out of the break he just looks a lot more settled. Some of that is experience, some of that is a little time out, frankly from a long grinding season.
“I’m really excited about the way Arty’s trended and certainly when you look at where he was a couple years ago to where he was a year back from now, I think it’s constant improvement, maybe not constant upward trajectory, but in general, the arrow’s definitely pointed up. We’re really excited about that. We think the sky’s the limit for this kid.”
Sergei Belski-Imagn ImagesOn Kevin Korchinski’s development:
“Look, Kevin’s a 21-year-old defenseman that I think is … If you ask me if he’s going to benefit more from popping into the line up [in the NHL] or playing big minutes in Rockford, it’d be playing big minutes in Rockford. And so that’s where we see his development best served right now and so that’s why we [sent him back to the IceHogs now]. I think we also want to get a look at Ethan [Del Mastro] here. He’s certainly got a lot less NHL experience than Kevin has, but 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 off season.
“We’re big fans of Kevin. He’s got a ton of upside, a ton of ability. He’s still raw, still getting into the pro game and learning through that process and that development process, but he’s someone that we really like. We have a lot of time for… If there’s development left to be served, then you go to Rockford and keep working on the development. That’s what he’s going to do.”
On Rockford as a development step:
“Going to Rockford is not a punishment. It’s an opportunity to keep growing your game and be ready when the opportunity arises. And that’s what we expect of him — that’s what we expect of all the young players in Rockford is that they’re staying ready. They’re committing themselves to their development and making the most of their time with the IceHogs because it’s time well spent.
“We’ve got eyes on them every single day, watch every single one of their games. So it’s not like they go down there into a black hole, they’re never seen. We’ve got hands on and eyes on them all the time watching and making sure that they’re taking the right steps … but we also don’t want just bodies hanging around here too.”
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