Chicago Blackhawks make surprising but smart moves on Tuesday

The biggest news in Chicago Blackhawks land is actually not the best news. They put Nicolas Beaudin on waivers which means that another terrible Stan Bowman trade is rearing its ugly head. However, onward and upward as the team clearly has a plan for the future.

It seems as if their plan is to be as bad as possible so that they can have a chance at winning the Draft Lottery in 2023. That would mean that generational skater Connor Bedard will be coming to town as the number one overall pick.

Tanking doesn’t guarantee anything but there are some other consolation prizes in the top five that would certainly help as well.

Having Arvid Soderblom go to the AHL in favor of Petr Mrazek and Alex Stalock is proof that they want to be as bad as possible for this reason. Soderblom is a very good young goalie that is better off playing in the AHL this year. There is no reason to keep him up on this disaster of a team.

In the same set of Monday transactions, the Hawks also sent Kevin Korchinski and Samuel Savoie to their respective junior teams. There is no reason for those guys to hurt their development playing for this bad team all year long.

The Chicago Blackhawks made a few big roster moves on Tuesday.

Going there, playing in the World Juniors, and feeling good about their games is the most important thing. We will certainly see them in 2023-24.

The Hawks weren’t done making surprising moves this week. On Tuesday, they made a bunch of transactions in addition to the Beaudin news. A few of their young players have been sent to the AHL so they can get ready to start the season with the Rockford Ice Hogs.

Cole Guttman, Lukas Reichel, Michal Teply, Josiah Slavin, and Isaak Phillips have all been assigned to the Hogs. David Gust and Kale Howarth were released from their PTOs and sent to Rockford as well.

The only player there that might come as a surprise to some folks is Reichel. He is the organization’s top prospect right now and a player that they hope to become a star.  He is easily one of their best nine forwards but there is no point to play him in the NHL to start.

He will certainly get his NHL moments in 2022-23 but it is much better for him to run the offense in Rockford ad continues developing. This Blackhawks team is going to be very bad so there is no point in having him skate on their third or fourth line.

As the team gets better by adding more young talent, the hope is that Reichel is right there with them all. Dominating this season in the AHL will do him so many favors in terms of his future.

With the first game of the season just over a week away, the team is down to 20 forwards, 12 defensemen, and three goalies. It should be interesting to see what the final roster looks like by the time the puck drops for real.