The final media session(s) for the 2023-24 Chicago Blackhawks arrived on Saturday morning and afternoon as the organization closed the book on another long, long season.
We’ll get to the player comments in a bit, but let’s start off with the comments from GM Kyle Davidson and, perhaps, the biggest comment of them all:
Just confirms that Davidson reads our website, doesn’t it? We’ll see if Davidson’s actions match up with those words, but hearing that the front office has the intention of rising from the depths of the league standings is encouraging place to start.
Davidson also addressed the lack of a captain for the team this season and what the plans are for the road ahead:
Coach Luke Richardson talked about a plan for next season to avoid some of the slower starts that plagued the team this season:
While there’s no more Blackhawks hockey this season, some of Chicago’s players have more hockey in their upcoming plans: specifically the 2024 IIHF World Championships, which will be played May 10-26 in Czechia.
Connor Bedard is one of several players who confirmed their intentions to play there, with some friendly competition among the objectives:
Earlier this month, both Seth Jones and Alex Vlasic confirmed that they’ll be playing for Team USA in the world championships.
Speaking of Vlasic, the general themes of his podium time were growth as a player the last couple of year, his personal expectations and contract talks for the restricted free agent:
Richardson has some high praise for Vlasic as well:
Jones’ time covered a wide range of topics, including the youngsters developing on the blue line, the effect of having players on short-term contracts and more:
He also mentioned how much he appreciated the fans’ support through the frustrating season:
Kevin Korchinski offered a fair summary of initial professional season:
The media also spoke to two pending UFA, Tyler Johnson and Colin Blackwell, about what their plans are for the future. For Johnson, it sure sounded like a player who’s not expecting to be back with the Blackhawks next season:
Blackwell seemed more likely to be among the players that wanted to return to the team for next season, that he really enjoyed spending time mentoring the younger players:
The Blackhawks also have a few RFAs — Joey Anderson, Reese Johnson, and MacKenzie Entiwistle — with uncertain futures in Chicago. They all seem to want to stay with the Blackhawks, but it’s a numbers game at this point so the slots for bottom-six players like those three will be limited next season:
Connor Murphy had a difficult, injury-plagued season and appears to have suffered another minor issue in the final week of the regular season that will require some attention this summer:
The new late additions, Landon Slaggert and Frank Nazar, spoke briefly about their time with the team and their hope to be a apart of the the long-term plans to be apart of the success Blackhawks. Slaggert emphasized he’s excited to see more prospects with the team in the coming years as well.
Lastly, Nick Foligno repeated himself a bit from his postgame interview after the Kings game, restating that the Blackhawks team needs to be focused on finding a team identity where every player is buying into the team no matter their role.