If Kevin Korchinski has learned anything in his 22 years of life, it’s to focus on the day-to-day. His career has already gone in so many unexpected ways. As he enters his fourth professional hockey season, he understands now more than ever not to get ahead of himself.
There are clear questions about where Korchinski fits with the Chicago Blackhawks this season, especially after general manager Kyle Davidson added two veterans to a depth chart that already had him slotted behind a few other young defensemen. No longer being waiver exempt also potentially complicates his situation. His recent two-year contract extension, which included a $1.325 million cap hit, provides some short-term security, but it doesn’t guarantee playing time.
“Obviously I want to be a Blackhawk and that was the main thing,” Korchinski said of his contract negotiations. “I love it here. I love the guys, I love the city. I love the fans. So I think for me, just want to stay here and just get a chance to play with the guys and improve myself.”
Those last two hopes could go hand-in-hand with his offseason. If he improves this offseason, he might be playing more with those guys come the NHL season. But as Korchinski embarked on the offseason, he was focused on the present and what he could control. Like any player, his goal was to improve.
How he sought to do that this offseason was different than the past three years prior to joining the Blackhawks in training camp.
What does Bowen Byram bring to the Blackhawks?
Mark Lazerus and Scott Powers
“I think obviously each year you want to prepare yourself to the best of your ability, but obviously as you grow older, you learn, you get better,” Korchinski recently said in a phone interview. “I think just having a cool head and taking it day by day is something that’s good for you. So obviously each day is a day to prove yourself, and come training camp, that’s kind of what you got to do. You got to prove yourself and prove you belong and prove that you want to be here.”
Korchinski ended the 2025-26 season on a high note. After playing in Rockford for most of the season, he played in the Blackhawks’ final nine NHL games and fared well in a small sample size. He had the highest expected goals percentage at five-on-five among the team’s defensemen in those games and had a high success rate at defensive-zone exits with possession and retrievals, according to Corey Sznajder’s tracking data.
So, how to build on that? Korchinski and the Blackhawks discussed a variety of ideas after the season.
For one, Korchinski decided to reduce his on-ice workload right after the season. His early focus was on getting stronger and eating right. His weight fluctuated last season, partly due to being sick a few times, and he wanted to find a weight he could maintain and add muscle. He has put on nearly a dozen pounds this offseason and weighs around 202 pounds.
“I think it was a good (start), just right after the season, attacking (the offseason) head-on, not over-skating too early,” Korchinski said. “I think in the past, I made that mistake where I get on the ice too early and skated too much where I can’t let my body get the gains from the gym, and just trying to be more dialed in on my diet and the amount of calories I get in so that I could build a better base. So I think that was really productive, just starting the summer in a good mindset and just planning it all out where I can attack the goals I want at the times they had to be attacked.”
Some of that off-ice work was done at the Blackhawks Ice Center. Unlike past offseasons, Korchinski decided to stick around Chicago for part of the summer. He was in the city for most of June and trained on and off the ice. On the ice, Korchinski worked with Blackhawks director of skill development Brian Keane.
“A lot of it was just working on technical stuff with your body, and receiving pucks and keeping your head up and just doing drills that help you build a base, so that when it comes game time, you go with split-second maneuvers, (so they) become more natural and it gives you more time to make a play,” Korchinski said. “Just trying to buy more time for yourself so that you feel more comfortable creating your next play, getting out of trouble. So I think with BK, it was awesome to work with him and really get the time to just grind out some little things that can help you create more and produce more, so it was really successful.”
Korchinski also sought to improve his skating this season. After the success forward Ryan Donato had working with skating coach Natalia Zagorodnikova, the Blackhawks brought her into Chicago for recent development camps. Korchinski set up time to work with her while she was in Chicago this summer.
Zagorodnikova was impressed Korchinski wanted to get into the weeds about his skating. In her experience, it’s not common among young players. The details can be overwhelming.
“To create an efficiency, you have to understand how your body works efficiently,” Zagorodnikova said. “If you understand where your movements come from, what should explode first when we do certain things in skating, if I slightly switch my attention from the foot to the knee or from the knee to the elbow, which one goes first? It makes a lot of difference and suddenly how much power you can generate and how efficiently you can use it. So again, detailed work depends on the individual person.
“We discovered with Kevin, if he added a lot more from the top, from his upper body, from his shoulders, from his elbows, that added a lot of power to (his skating). And then when you add the drive from that, what we usually see is in the knees and the hip, then it becomes a lot more powerful and a lot more efficient.”
Korchinski went in with an open mind and found it beneficial.
“It’s stuff that I’d never kind of heard before that,” Korchinski said. “So I think that was really good, and it was cool to see her philosophy on just driving and how to maintain glide and use less energy.”
Aside from the hockey aspect of being in Chicago, he also took the opportunity to see more of the city. For his birthday in June, he saw musician Morgan Wallen play at Soldier Field. Korchinski also went to a Chicago Cubs game and watched Pete Crow-Armstrong play in person.
“I love Wrigley,” Korchinski said. “It was my second time there, but we had really good tickets and we got to sit kind of behind the backstop. It was a really good game. Not a huge baseball guy, but I guess what PCA is doing is pretty incredible. It’s really cool to see him light the league up and represent Chicago.”
Korchinski is back in Chicago again and has been joining his teammates for informal skates. They’ll be starting training camp together in a few weeks. Korchinski knows he’ll have to prove himself come camp, but his approach to that is no different than his offseason.
“Obviously every day in training camp is going to be a test, and obviously you want to push each other and obviously, yeah, there’s a competition,” Korchinski said. “But I think for me, it’s — like I said — take it day by day, and try and win each battle, and come into training camp with some fire and just try to compete and try to make each other better. So I think it’s gonna be fun and it’s going to be really competitive, so I’m excited for it.”