There are too many players at Blackhawks training camp for all of them to fit in the main locker room at Fifth Third Arena, even with a few spare lockers in the corners, so the Hawks also use an auxiliary locker room on the opposite side of the main rink. Players who have appeared in at least one NHL game get to be in the primary room. Prospects who haven’t yet made it up to the big leagues get crammed into the other one.
In the span of a year, defenseman Louis Crevier has made the transfer — much faster than expected for a seventh-round pick in 2020. His 24 NHL appearances last season came somewhat out of the blue.
“It’s not a ton [of experience], but it’s a lot compared to where I was a year ago,” Crevier said. “I was on the other side, not sitting here. . . .
“There’s a big step between the NHL and AHL in terms of talent. You can get a guy [in the big leagues] on the fourth line who’s been a 50-goal scorer in juniors. Everyone is really talented, and you have to adjust your playing style.”
Crevier, a 6-8 blue-liner with a lanky frame, has stabilized his weight around 240 pounds while focusing on solidifying his core muscles in summer training to increase his middle-body strength. He made his preseason debut Friday night in the Hawks’ 2-0 road loss to the Red Wings as part of a prospect-heavy lineup that featured Lukas Reichel, Frank Nazar and Nick Lardis as the first forward line.
Crevier is battling for the sixth or seventh defenseman role on the opening-night depth chart, but his unique developmental path — ascending from a third-pairing guy in Rockford in 2022 to a third-pairing guy in Chicago last season — allows him to not stress too much about the outcome.
“Yes, it’s a training camp where you want to do things right, but really, it’s a year-long camp,” he said. “It doesn’t mean if you don’t make the opening roster [that] you’ll never play. Same thing if you make the roster. It doesn’t mean you’ll never go down.”
‘No thinking’ for Nazar
Nazar is one of the players using a spare locker in the corner of the main room. His three appearances with the Hawks at the end of last season put him at the bottom of the totem pole among those in camp with NHL experience.
He fit in seamlessly during those three games in April. It took him longer to shake off the summer rust and readjust to the NHL pace in the preseason opener Wednesday.
“When I’m thinking too much, [that’s] when I will stop and try to read the play and think about what I need to do or what’s going to happen,” Nazar said. “When I’m moving my feet, it’s just reaction — no thinking, just doing.”
The Hawks’ second-line center spot remains available, although Nazar probably will have to perform even better the last week of camp to convince the team he doesn’t need fine-tuning in Rockford first.
Maintenance list
A growing list of players are absent from camp for “maintenance,” with no specific injuries cited. On Friday, defenseman Wyatt Kaiser missed his fourth straight day, defenseman Alec Martinez missed his second straight day, and forward Taylor Hall also sat out. However, coach Luke Richardson doesn’t seem worried about any of those three being more than day-to-day concerns.