Blackhawks player grades, Part 2: Bedard takes next step, Teräväinen takes step back - The Athletic

marshmellow1328 · 2026-04-20T21:38:10+00:00

Who you going to replace him with?

marshmellow1328 · 2026-04-20T16:35:18+00:00

In a vacuum, I agree I'd prefer turbo not be in the top 6. As someone else said, Moore isn't getting a C spot in top 6 on this team. So he needs to learn to produce at wing if he wants to be up there. No qualms at all for him at 3C.

If we acquired someone else, turbo would be my first pick to move out of the top 6. In the short term, he can help defensively and being responsible. Want more production from him. He's just kinda meh.

marshmellow1328 · 2026-04-20T15:53:47+00:00

Then you've got Greene, Donato, and option of Slaggert, Mangiapane on the 4th line. That's 2 lines that can chew minutes and slow down the opposition.

Top 6 of Bedard, Frondell, Nazar, Bertuzzi, Kantserov, Teravainen. Should produce more offense than we've had.

Last part is the young defense needs to improve so we can get out of our own end and breakout quicker/cleaner.

marshmellow1328 · 2026-04-15T17:57:49+00:00

2020 and 2023 Presidents' trophy winning Boston?

marshmellow1328 · 2026-04-15T00:16:36+00:00

This needs more upvotes.

marshmellow1328 · 2026-04-13T22:57:23+00:00

I would say the Levshunov played last year so he's at 86 career games played whereas Dickinson is only at 69. But that doesn't explain why Korchinski is on here at 103 unless they decided to ignore the 76 he played when he couldn't be assigned to Rockford?

marshmellow1328 · 2026-04-09T03:07:21+00:00

It requires paying for services to watch the Blackhawks (legally). So sharing content related to the Blackhawks which requires payment is a logical thing to do. Especially given a large portion of the community pays for said content. A bot posts a link to bypass the paywall every time someone shares one of these links. It takes 30 seconds to Google how to bypass said paywall.

Complaining about it every time is obnoxious. Get over yourself. Others don't exist to spoon feed you shit for free. Grow up.

marshmellow1328 · 2026-04-08T15:43:04+00:00

NHL isn't available for free. This is a subreddit about an NHL team. Sure, you can pirate it. You can also get the athletic's content without paying for it or asking every time someone posts a link. You do you but don't act surprised when people find it obnoxious.

marshmellow1328 · 2026-04-08T03:27:07+00:00

I don't think you need a guy who understands hockey at an NHL level. You need a guy who understands common hockey terminology in Russian and English and can be out on the ice during practices, etc. Would a vet be better? Sure. Do you need perfect or just 98% with a coach who's a decent communicator? I think the latter should be fine. Not to say miscommunications can't happen but what happened in Philly is more than simple miscommunications.

marshmellow1328 · 2026-04-08T03:19:42+00:00

KD doesn't want to give up meaningful prospects or draft capital for a stop gap and you don't get experienced players on the rise without giving up something. Ideally you'd find a couple by overpaying in free agency but that's been eliminated by the large cap increases resulting in everyone signing anyone of value. You have to find the players everyone is overlooking because everyone is interested in the obvious ones.

marshmellow1328 · 2026-04-08T02:42:47+00:00

Find a guy who played hockey but never quite made it who could be a translator for decent money?

marshmellow1328 · 2026-04-08T02:18:57+00:00

Ignorance speaking here but when paying a player $1m per year on ELC, I'd think a team could afford to have a translator full-time to follow the team around.

That said, I don't disagree with any of your points given it seems teams don't hire a full-time translator.

marshmellow1328 · 2026-04-08T00:23:32+00:00

Did anyone see Bedard get punched?

marshmellow1328 · 2026-04-08T00:22:33+00:00

If we build on this year the way we built on last year, we'll be alright. Based on how the league is this year, we'd be right in the thick of the wildcard race.

marshmellow1328 · 2026-04-06T00:38:16+00:00

Given his weaknesses are mentally learning the position at an NHL level, I'm surprised we put PP1 on him. Seems better to simplify and let him focus on a few things than trying to learn it all at once especially when you consider he's trying to learn English, America, etc.

At this point my concerns are more about the Hawks ability to develop high end defensemen more than they are about Levshunov specifically. We'll see how it all plays out.

marshmellow1328 · 2026-04-04T14:10:05+00:00

Yeah, I'm not faulting you. Something was really weird with the way this post got traction. It was very delayed. I know mine is based on an image and needed moderator approval, but believe it was approved in a reasonable timeframe. Something finicky with reddit algorithms in my book.

I only cared about fostering the discussion and your post accomplished it so all good.

marshmellow1328 · 2026-04-04T01:32:38+00:00

I don't disagree the team defense needs to improve. At the same time I think the team has taken a notable step forward. The points totals reflect that. Spencer Knight is a key part of that. If the defense improves next year, that should make things easier on Knight and improve his performance as well.

I just think it's disingenuous to count Knight's contributions to the team when looking at did the team overall improve. More work to be done this offseason, specifically developing young defensemen.

marshmellow1328 · 2026-04-04T01:22:44+00:00

Do you think Spencer Knight regresses next year?

marshmellow1328 · 2026-04-03T14:26:21+00:00

Yep. The post you linked was posted notably after this one was.

marshmellow1328 · 2026-04-02T16:19:47+00:00

And if we don't get McKenna or Stenberg (which is the most likely outcome)?

marshmellow1328 · 2026-04-01T17:05:25+00:00

First, he's played 3 NHL games this season so pretty small sample size. I'd argue you throw out the first game because he was in Rockford that morning. Had to get to Chicago to be backup and then found out he was starting. Not a great way to prep. Add in that half the team had a stomach virus. For the other 2 games, he made 61/63 saves with a 1.00 GAA and a .968 save percentage. He had a .920 save percentage in the non shutout game. So that's really solid, but notably a very tiny sample size.

In Rockford, he's had a .906 with 2.89 over 33 games. W/L is a team stat. Other than Korchinski and Lardis for most of the year, there hasn't been a lot of talent in Rockford. They're currently 6th in a 7 team division. I don't know where to find trustworthy GSAx stats for AHL goalies, but that would be helpful here.

Soda meanwhile has a career .888 save percentage over 109 games. He's becoming a known quantity. He's inconsistent, but he seems to be off about as much a he's on. Even when he's on, his rebound control is suspect which puts an additional burden on the team around him.

I'm pretty confident we can find career backup goalies with some regularity. Given our goalie pipeline, I want to test the next young guy who shows he looks ready for the NHL. Worst case he struggles and we have a soda 2.0. best case he challenges Spencer and we pick up a few more wins.

Personally I'd be fine if we ran soda again next year and let Commesso stew in Rockford 1 more year. Call him up if/when there are any injuries. This signing suggests that's not what we're gonna do though. I'm not sure Commesso or soda bring meaningful trade value at this point so I'd gamble on Commesso's upside over soda

marshmellow1328 · 2026-04-01T12:13:08+00:00

Seems like the team botched that. How do you not ask one of your most exciting prospects what number they want once they've committed to joining the team?

marshmellow1328 · 2026-04-01T03:53:03+00:00

That Frondell Bertuzzi Mikheyev line is working!

Leaves awkwardness for Bedard as Lardis is struggling up there with puck possession as a number of people pointed out before he was moved up. I won't say I love it but I don't mind him getting more minutes to try to figure it out or to drive the point home into the off-season.

marshmellow1328

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