The Blackhawks have a numbers problem, but it’s a great problem to have.
The storyline throughout Chicago’s ongoing training camp has been the competition for a few spots on this season’s forward lines. There’s currently a pretty clear top-six group with Frank Nazar on the outside looking in. Connor Bedard, Teuvo Teravainen, Tyler Bertuzzi, Philipp Kurashev, and Taylor Hall will all be locked into the top six, and Lukas Reichel will probably start the season there, too. The team’s third line of Nick Foligno, Jason Dickinson and Ilya Mikheyev has looked good so far in camp and should be slotted in that way to start the season.
But even in the scenario that Nazar doesn’t make the NHL roster to open the season, the Blackhawks still have one or two too many forwards on this roster. Chicago’s fourth line is wide open, with around five players fighting for three starting roles.
Ryan Donato is probably the most likely to hang onto a true starting role, slotting in as a potential bottom-line center. He spent time next to Bedard last year, but also struggled at times and had to fight for minutes. He’s had a great camp so far and is the most familiar face among this group.
Another likely candidate to play most games on this bottom line, Craig Smith has had a terrific camp, scoring a sweet goal Wednesday night. He’s only on a one-year deal, so that’s an even bigger reason to get as long of a look at him as possible before making a decision next summer.
The role of Pat Maroon on this team is unclear – he’s a big-bodied heavy hitter, but also may not get into the lineup every night. His archetype isn’t common in the Blackhawks’ organization at the moment, so the team could certainly use his skills whenever possible.
Joey Anderson proved he belongs in the NHL last year, but it’s unclear how much of his overall success was due to being paired with Dickinson, one of the highlights of last year’s roster. The coaching staff likes him, and with a combination of good speed and top-tier defensive skill, he’s an ideal fourth liner.
Andreas Athanasiou is still one of the fastest players in the entire league and still knows how to use that ability to create opportunities and score a bunch of goals. His only problem is that he’s been injured for most of the last few seasons. When healthy, he’s a high-level fourth liner that could find himself centering the second line, but he’s not healthy too often.
The problem – that’s five deserving names competing for three starting spots and four overall. That means the Blackhawks have a few big decisions to make, but also that they can’t keep everyone.
That means Chicago GM Kyle Davidson has already been making calls to try to deal one of the above names. All of them are on NHL contracts, so the Blackhawks would have to send them through waivers to try to put them in the AHL, and each player would get picked up by another team to prevent that from happening. As a result, we should be expecting a trade from Chicago sometime in the next two weeks. The Blackhawks will want to get some value in return for whoever they decide can’t fit on the roster, and will likely make a deal with a team like the Kings, who are looking for a fourth-line center of their own.
