CHICAGO — The last time Ilya Mikheyev was on the trade block, after he lost the faith of the Vancouver Canucks coaching staff with a poor finish to the 2023-24 season, it felt different. He was being shopped around because he was unwanted. And a fresh start sounded good to him, too. Like with Jason Dickinson before him, Vancouver proved to be a bad fit for Mikheyev. An ACL injury cost him half his first season there, and when he came back for a second, he seemed to have lost that speed that made him so effective in Toronto at the start of his career.
This time around, it’s different. Mikheyev loves Chicago, and Chicago loves Mikheyev.
“Vancouver, it was a different story,” he said. “Here, I feel more confidence, I play more, and it just feels like home. Vancouver, it wasn’t like that.”
And yet here he is, perhaps on the market again. The Blackhawks think very highly of Mikheyev, who has emerged as one of the league’s very best penalty killers and a solid depth scorer, with 20 goals last season and is coming off a four-point night (one goal and three primary assists) in a 6-3 victory over the San Jose Sharks on Monday night.
But Mikheyev will be 32 years old at the start of next season. He hardly fits the rebuilding Blackhawks’ projected contention window. And since he’s in the last year of his contract — and considering how coveted veteran third-line defensive forwards have become at the trade deadline in recent years — Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson would be foolish not to see what’s out there. Like Dickinson and defenseman Connor Murphy, Mikheyev is theoretically blocking a path to the NHL for a younger player who fits in the long-term picture.
So it’s possible he’s gone by March 6, with a newborn at home and the experience to know that not every franchise will be a perfect fit. But with a trip to sunny Florida for the Olympic break looming, Mikheyev has so far managed to block out the noise.
“I can’t control this, so I’m not thinking about this,” Mikheyev said. “Let’s see what happens. I don’t have the last word. Nobody’s going to be asking (me), so why should I worry about this?”
All that said, Davidson has to pay somebody next season. Whatever monster number Connor Bedard signs at will help, but with so many regulars still on entry-level contracts, Davidson still might need to throw some money at a veteran or two to get to the cap floor. Mikheyev makes a lot of sense. He’s one of the biggest reasons the Blackhawks have the top-ranked penalty kill in the league, and he serves as a shining example of selfless, defensively responsible play for the younger forwards on the team.
Mikheyev might not be a household name in the hockey world, but the Blackhawks know what they have in him.
“He doesn’t go under the radar in our dressing room,” Bedard said. “We understand how great he is. I think he’s the best penalty killer in the league and it shows with our penalty kill right now. He’s the guy that’s hopping over the boards first every time. It’s unbelievable what he can do — his speed, his motor, the way he can get in the way of everything and just cause havoc. I know in practice, it sucks to go against him. It’s fun to watch. Not just PK, his [five-on-five] game, as well. He does so much for us. Maybe from an outside perspective people don’t know, but in the room we definitely appreciate what he does and how great he is.”
Mikheyev has played the wing on every line in just about every conceivable role. He can keep up with Bedard, or he can grind out tough matchup minutes. He’s been most valuable alongside Dickinson, who doesn’t have Mikheyev’s speed but has a similar mindset and skill set.
In 8:37 of five-on-five time on Monday night — mostly matched up against Macklin Celebrini’s line — Mikheyev, Dickinson and Donato outscored the Sharks 4-0.
“He’s a guy that’s the epitome of details,” Dickinson said of Mikheyev. “He does everything right. He battles his heart out every single game.”
Blackhawks coach Jeff Blashill called Mikheyev a “winning-type player,” which is his highest compliment. Is there room for such a player on a Blackhawks team that’s getting younger by the month? Or will Davidson continue to clear the decks for the next generation — Nick Lardis, Anton Frondell, Sacha Boisvert and on and on — and try to sell relatively high on a valuable player?
We’ll find out in the next month.
“We’ll see in the summer, we’ll see what happens before the deadline,” Mikheyev said. “But I like it here, for sure.”
Artyom Levshunov is up for anything the Blackhawks want to throw at him. He has one goal and is willing to do whatever it takes.
“I want to be great,” Levshunov said after practice on Tuesday. “I know I’m maybe young, but I still have to try to be great and become better. Of course, it’s hard. Not every person who is my age is super successful at this age.”
Levshunov has played more NHL games than any other defenseman selected in the last three drafts and is the fifth-youngest defenseman in the league now. The Blackhawks decided to take a step back with the 20-year-old recently after a stretch of inconsistent play, including being on the ice for five goals against last week. He was a healthy scratch in the last two games and is unlikely to play Wednesday before the Olympic break. He’s been working with skills coach Brian Keane on the ice and watching video with assistant coach Anders Sörensen.
Artyom Levshunov has been a healthy scratch the last two games. (Stacy Revere / Getty Images)
“It’s just there are a lot of little technique things that you don’t get enough time to really focus on when you’re playing every other night or every night, so it’s more of a foundation building, kind of rebuild that foundation,” Blashill said. “It’s given us a chance to look at some stuff off the ice in terms of where his body’s at physically from a power standpoint. We’re going to readdress a couple of things that way to help give him more endurance within a shift.
“The areas that we’re focusing on, he’s working on. To say that we have a miracle cure in two days is not reality. This is something that’s really going to build through when we come back, as much as we can over the course of the last month in time, and certainly this summer it’s going to be huge.”
Levshunov will travel to Florida during the break. He’s lived there in the offseason since leaving Belarus in 2022. He planned to skate and train while there.
“I want to get better, but it’s time to reset,” Levshunov said. “It’s good to have a little time off from hockey, a little playing.”
Sörensen can remember exactly where he was when Sweden won gold in the 1994 and 2006 Olympics. He had a close friend, Mikael Samuelsson, on the 2006 team.
When Sweden plays later this month in Milan, Sörensen will have a much different view than before. He’ll be on the bench as an assistant coach.
“It’s an honor,” he said this week. “Even though I have dual citizenship, I was born in Sweden. So, yeah, it’s going to be an honor. But just the whole experience, I think trying to soak it in as much as possible. I think the schedule is pretty intense, so I won’t have a lot of time to do other things than hockey.”
Sörensen will help with Sweden’s forwards and run their power play. He was an assistant for last year’s World Championship.
“I feel really good about our team,” Sörensen said. “We’re going to win; that’s our mindset. We have a lot of respect for the other countries and the lineups they have, but we really like our lineup, so our goal is to go there to win.”
Sörensen has already had some friendly banter with Blackhawks forward Teuvo Teräväinen, who will be playing for Finland.
“We play him the second game, so I’m sure that’s going to be an intense matchup,” Sörensen said.
Ben Smith played 10:23 in Game 3 of the 2013 Stanley Cup Final. (Harry How / Getty Images)
Ben Smith was grateful to be invited to the Blackhawks’ recent “Banner Years” celebration of the franchise’s Stanley Cup championships, but he knows his place in team history.
“I always put a little asterisk when people say you’re a Stanley Cup champion,” the 37-year-old Smith said in a recent phone interview. “Well, I was a part of it, but 10 1/2 minutes, minus-one and lost the game. It’s nice they include me in all of this.”
While all that is true, Smith also recognizes how lucky he was was in 2013. He had played nearly the entire 2012-13 season in Rockford, was called up to play in the final regular-season game, stayed up when the playoffs began and practiced with the Blackhawks as a fifth-line forward. He understood something massively unexpected would have to happen for him to play, and that’s what happened when Marián Hossa suffered a back injury during Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final. Hossa participated in warmups in Game 3 and didn’t feel like he could go. That’s when Smith, who hadn’t played in nearly two months, got the nod to play in the Stanley Cup Final.
“It was kind of a crazy situation, looking back on it,” Smith said. “I didn’t warm up. I just kind of showed up for the first period. It’s a cool story. It’s a special memory. Obviously because of that, if Hossa could have played, I wouldn’t have been part of a Stanley Cup team because I wouldn’t have played a game in the finals.”
It’s one of the many stories Smith can now share with Boston Bruins prospects. Smith’s last NHL/AHL season came in 2017-18 and until last season, he had been playing in Europe, mostly Germany. After retiring, he accepted a position with the Bruins to be a player development coordinator. He works mostly with college prospects.
“It’s nice to relive the journey a little bit and share my experience, whether it’s playing or dealing with some situations (that) happen over the course of a young career — be a little bit of a mentor, really,” Smith said. “Just anything I can help with the kids if they need, if they have someone or a couple people they can text or call and just chat about something. It’s nice a way to give back, because there were lots of people for me who did that. It’s nice to be able to do that for some of those young guys.”