The Blackhawks will be the first NHL team to face the new Utah Hockey Club.
Their 2024-25 regular-season schedule, announced Tuesday, begins with a trip to Salt Lake City on Oct. 8 — the finale of an opening-night triple-header on ESPN.
From there, the Hawks visit the Jets, Oilers and Flames before returning to Chicago for their home opener Oct. 17 against the Sharks. That will be a matchup of the last two No. 1 overall draft picks, centers Connor Bedard and Macklin Celebrini. This will be the fifth consecutive season the Hawks have started with a road trip of three games or longer.
The overall schedule includes 21 home games on weekend dates (Friday, Saturday or Sunday), down from 25 last year. Seven of those are matinees.
The Winter Classic against the Blues on New Year’s Eve is part of a five-game homestand, but the Hawks evidently had to give up their traditional Black Friday home game in exchange. They’ll visit the Wild that day instead.
Former Hawk Patrick Kane and the Red Wings come to town Nov. 6, and the defending champion Panthers visit Nov. 21. In mid-February, there’s a two-week break for the new Four Nations Faceoff (in lieu of an All-Star Game). The Hawks’ home finale is April 12 against the Jets, just before a season-ending road trip to Montreal and Ottawa.
Before all of that, though, the Hawks have a six-game preseason from Sept. 25 to Oct. 5, facing the Blues, Wings and Wild twice each.
Blackhawks’ preseason schedule*:
Sept 25 vs Red Wings
Sept 27 at Red Wings
Sept 28 at Blues
Oct 1 at Wild
Oct 4 vs Wild
Oct 5 vs Blues (in Milwaukee)(*Based on other teams’ releases. Hawks plan to officially announce it alongside regular-season schedule.)
— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) June 24, 2024
Send to Soderblom
Young goalie Arvid Soderblom finds himself squarely out of the NHL roster conversation after the Hawks’ signing of Laurent Brossoit to a two-year contract with a $3.3 million salary-cap hit. Brossoit and Petr Mrazek, whose two-year extension with a $4.25 million cap hit is just kicking in, will clearly be the NHL tandem next season.
Soderblom had to realize the Hawks would at least bring in someone else to compete for the backup job considering how poorly he fared in that role last season, going 5-22-2 with an .879 save percentage that ranked 64th out of 65 goalies league-wide. But this represents an outright demotion back to Rockford.
Coach Luke Richardson did his best Monday to explain what the message to the 24-year-old Swede will be.
“When goals start going in on the backdoor and stuff, it takes away the confidence of the goalie,” Richardson said. “He’s not trusting [the defense], and it got him right off his game. And he couldn’t work on his game at the NHL level. Teams go right after him. So it’s going to allow him to work on his game, build it back up to where it was.
“He’s got that ability, but not when his mind and confidence aren’t right. So I think once we get all that established on who we have and where everybody’s going to situate in the organization, we’ll have those conversations about setting goals.”
Pain tolerance
There were hints last season that Hawks coach Luke Richardson was privately annoyed by some players sitting out with injuries he believed they could play through. He basically confirmed that Monday while discussing the signings of veterans such as forward Pat Maroon and defenseman Alec Martinez.
“[This will] give us a chance to have guys that have gone through injuries [teach] guys that have never gone through big injuries how you come back and how you have to play a little bit through some pain,” Richardson said. “You’re not going to hurt yourself even more. It’s hard to do. The first time you think you’re hurt, you’re just saying, ‘I’m hurt.’ I think there’s different levels of that.
“To get guys that have gone through long Stanley Cup playoff runs, everybody is hurt at that point. [They’ll help us] learn what you can do or what you can’t do. When you’re going to hurt the team by playing through this injury, [you need to] take some time off. Or is it just going to be there and I have to learn how to play with pain?”
Hawks diaspora
The players the Hawks let walk away as free agents this summer didn’t draw a ton of interest, but a decent number eventually found new teams.
Taylor Raddysh signed with the Capitals and Colin Blackwell signed with the Stars. Guys who settled for two-way contracts include MacKenzie Entwistle with the Panthers and Reese Johnson with the Wild. Tyler Johnson, who left Chicago with an arguably bad attitude, is still searching for his next destination.
The Hawks’ improvement in 2024-25 now appears like it will be largely driven by veterans on short-term deals who won’t factor into the long-term rebuild. The youth movement — and the fruits of the rebuild as a whole — has been delayed by a year.
After nearly three years of ineligibility for employment within the league due to involvement in the Brad Aldrich sexual-assault scandal, the Hawks’ former GM and coach will now be eligible to be hired by any team starting July 10.
The Hawks made a series of splashy moves Monday as NHL free agency began, adding a long list of veterans —Teravainen, Bertuzzi, Laurent Brossoit, Alec Martinez, T.J. Brodie, Pat Maroon and Craig Smith. They also brought back Joey Anderson.