Chicago Blackhawks: 3 Golden Knights to sign in offseason
Deryk Engelland and Jon Merrill have a lot in common as far as their play. They are both defensive defensemen that have pulled off their role to perfection in their time with the Vegas Golden Knights. The only thing for Engelland is that he is ten years older than Merrill. We don’t know for sure if, at 38-years-old, Engelland is going to even return next season but if he did he would be a great fit on the Hawks’ blue line for one season.
He would be a great leader in the locker room and on the ice for the other young blue line. As mentioned before, he and Merrill are very similar in terms of the fact that they are there to defend. In 671 games he has 30 goals and 97 assists for 127 points. He did, however, have a 52.6 CorsiFor for Vegas in 2019-20 which is very good for an older defenseman. That came in 49 games played for Engelland as he didn’t play in every game for them because they were deep.
If he came to Chicago, it would be nice if Adam Boqvist and Ian Mitchell both made enough of an impact where if a guy like Deryk Engelland came in, he would slide right into a 3rd pair role. He was healthy scratched a good amount of the time for Vegas and the Hawks would probably get him a lot of rest if he decided to come over as well. He hasn’t played in the playoffs yet so it will be interesting to see if he sees any ice in this series but if he wants to play in 2020-21, the Hawks might have a spot for him.