Chicago – There was no easing in for the Chicago Blackhawks at the start of training camp. Not with Jeff Blashill in charge.
Connor Bedard and Co. had a rigorous first day of practice, and Blashill was everywhere – barking out various instructions and pointers. It took a toll, too.
“My feet are killing me,” a smiling Blashill said Thursday. “I haven’t been on the ice since April, so that was a hard adjustment. I don’t remember them hurting that bad, but I guess that’s what happens every training camp.”
And that’s a relatively minor adjustment for Blashill in his first real look at his new team since he was hired as coach in May. His big task is moving along a painful rebuilding process after Chicago won a total of 74 games over the previous three seasons.
There is talent – led by Bedard, who just turned 20 in July – but the Blackhawks assuredly will be one of the NHL’s youngest teams on opening night. So Blashill has some work to do.
“Out of camp, one, we want to start to build a culture here. … The second goal would be to make sure your systems are in place,” Blashill said. “Third goal would be to figure out who’s in what spots.”
Blashill said Thursday was mostly about culture, focused on winning fundamentals. The intensity and pace – especially for the first day of training camp – were noticeable. There was little down time, with Blashill and his coaching staff hurrying the players into place ahead of each drill.
“I loved everything about today,” captain Nick Foligno said. “I think it sets the tone for what Blash is going to want, what our coaching staff wants, and the standard that we want to have.”
Bedard said the players knew what was coming.
“He warned us a little that we were going to be skating,” he said. “I think it’s good. You need to do that and it’s going to build a culture and the way we’re going to play.”
The job with the Blackhawks is a second opportunity for Blashill to prove he can be a successful head coach in the NHL. The 51-year-old Michigan native went 204-261-72 in seven seasons with the Detroit Red Wings before he was let go in April 2022.
Blashill spent the previous three years as an assistant to Jon Cooper with Tampa Bay, but he likely will be calling on his experience as a head coach in the minors as he navigates the growing pains with the youthful Blackhawks.
“There’s real comparisons to my experiences that I had in the American (Hockey) League,” he said. “But in the end, a coach said this to me a long time ago, he was a former player, (he) said his best coaches made them do it right, and we’re going to make our guys do it right.”
Blashill and the Blackhawks opened training camp without veteran goaltender Laurent Brossoit, who has been sidelined by injuries since he agreed to a two-year contract last year in free agency. General manager Kyle Davidson said Brossoit is going to be out “long term” after he had offseason hip surgery.
The Blackhawks acquired Spencer Knight in a March 1 trade with Florida, and they signed the goaltender to a contract extension last week. They also have Arvid Soderblom in net.
Knights’ Marner hits the ice
Las Vegas – The Golden Knights are always going for it, constantly willing to chase top talent in order to make a run at the Stanley Cup.
Their latest big-name acquisition, Mitch Marner, appeared on the ice Thursday morning as Vegas opened training camp.
“We haven’t had a stretch in our history where you know you’re taking a step back,” general manager Kelly McCrimmon said. “That’s not how we feel. We’re going to be pedal to the floorboard.”
The Golden Knights would be among the favorites this season even if they hadn’t acquired Marner in a sign-and-trade deal worth $96 million over eight years. But having one of the NHL’s top playmakers on the roster moves Vegas closer to the front of the contender conversation.
Two-time defending champion Florida is the 6-1 favorite at BetMGM Sportsbook and next up are Vegas and Colorado at 8-1 each.
Marner and some of his new teammates attended Monday night’s Las Vegas Raiders-Los Angeles Chargers game and were shown on the Allegiant Stadium big screen. Included were three of the top five picks from the 2015 draft – Jack Eichel (No. 2), Marner (No. 4) and Noah Hanifin (No. 5).
All on the same club.
It’s not like Marner isn’t used to extraordinarily high expectations.
He comes from the hockey hotbed of Toronto, where he played for the team he grew up cheering on. Marner hoped the storybook tale of leading his beloved team to the championship would eventually come true.
It didn’t, and as disappointed as he was at failing to get past the second round each season, many Maple Leafs fans took it even more personally. As the face of the franchise, Marner often took the brunt of criticism from one of the league’s most rabid fan bases.
He later told Canadian sports network TSN that safety concerns for his family were one of the reasons he wanted to leave. In landing in Vegas, Marner has the chance to start over with a new fan base, and he said he could see their passion at the Raiders game.
“It’s been a lot of fun getting to know the area pretty well now,” Marner said. “It’s been great going out for walks – the sun, the heat, the mountains. The dog’s still getting used to it here with the heat, but it’s just been awesome.”
Marner, like Eichel, is more of a playmaker than a shot taker. He was fifth in the league last season with 102 points and third with 75 assists, both career highs. Marner scored 27 goals.
Eichel produced similar numbers, finishing with 28 goals, 66 assists and 94 points. He acknowledged after last season he probably needs to shoot more often.
One of the key questions going into the season is whether coach Bruce Cassidy will use both players on the same top line or split them up. If they play together like they did Thursday – Ivan Barbashev was the third line member – at least one of them will have to be more aggressive.
“We’re both going to have to shoot it,” Marner said. “I think we’re both going to get some good opportunities. We’ve got to be comfortable in the areas to not be afraid to shoot. Barby’s going to be around the net hunting those pucks, so just try to get it around there.”
Eichel contract remains priority
McCrimmon said after last season that keeping Eichel, who has one season left on his eight-year, $80 million contract, was high on the agenda. He maintained that stance with camp opening.
“We have tremendous regard for the player and what he’s meant to our organization,” McCrimmon said. “I think he feels the organization’s been very good for him as well. We’ll continue to have dialogue.”
Eichel was not made available to the media on Thursday after taking part in only one of two practice sessions. Cassidy said Eichel had tweaked something in the first session and was kept out for precautionary reasons.
Eichel said during the NHL media tour earlier this month that he wasn’t opposed to continuing negotiations if nothing gets done before the season begins.
“If a contract happens organically, then it happens,” Eichel said at the time. “Right now, you’re just focused on trying to get yourself in as good of a place as you can be to start the season and help the hockey team.”
Pietrangelo still involved
Defenseman Alex Pietrangelo, who won Stanley Cups in St. Louis and Vegas, has been one of the Golden Knights’ key figures as much as for his leadership abilities as his on-ice performance.
He is not playing this season because of a major hip injury and his NHL future is in question.
McCrimmon said Pietrangelo plans on living in Las Vegas and be involved with the club.
“He’s around the facility lots,” McCrimmon said. “He wants to stay connected, stay busy, so we expect to see him a fair bit.”
Kopitar will retire after 20th season
El Segundo, Calif. – Kings captain Anze Kopitar says he will retire after the upcoming season, ending a 20-year NHL career spent entirely in Los Angeles.
The 38-year-old Kopitar made the announcement Thursday at a news conference with his family following the first practice of training camp.
“My mind is made up,” Kopitar said. “It was a hard decision, and I will put 100% of my energy into this season. I know I’m going to give it all and leave the game with a positive mindset.”
The Slovenian center has spent his entire hockey career and adult life with the Kings since his NHL debut as a teenager in October 2006. He is a five-time NHL All-Star, a two-time winner of the Selke Trophy as the NHL’s best defensive forward and a three-time winner of the Lady Byng Trophy for sportsmanlike play.
Most prominently, he was a star power forward on both of the Kings’ only Stanley Cup-winning teams in 2012 and 2014. He is the second-leading scorer in franchise history, and he expressed pride at being able to accomplish the rare feat of playing an entire lengthy career with one team.
“For me, I always looked at LA as my team, as my home,” Kopitar said. “We always felt extremely comfortable here, so it didn’t really cross my mind to even think or explore to go anywhere else. Obviously the fact that we were the first team to bring the Cup to LA, it makes it special, and then to follow it up with another one, those are the core memories that you can’t just ignore, even sometimes when times were a little bit rough and we didn’t have a very competitive team.
“Those memories, and the guys around you that have won with you before, those are the reasons that I didn’t think about going anywhere else.”
Kopitar is still playing at an elite level after recording 21 goals and 46 assists last season, but he said he wants to have more time with his wife and soon-to-be-teenage children. He also plans to move his family back to Slovenia.
“We have a figure skater and a hockey player on our hands, so I want to be present for them, to be at their competitions and their games,” he said.
Kopitar’s 1,278 career points are 40th in NHL history, and he is just 29 points behind Marcel Dionne, the leading scorer in Kings history. He is the Kings’ franchise leader in games played with 1,454, and he was their leading scorer in 15 of his first 19 seasons.
Kopitar has been Los Angeles’ captain since 2016, and he even tried to put the team first in making his retirement declaration.
“Why announce now? I guess a simple way to put it is I want to get this out of the way now to where I’m not a distraction for the team,” Kopitar said. “For example, if we’re in a (playoff) fight coming down the stretch, the last thing I want to do is take any attention away from the team and put it on myself. I just felt this is the best time. But in saying that, I am looking extremely forward to this next season. I still have a lot of motivation. I’ve got a lot of energy, a lot of desire to compete at the very highest level, and the moves that we’ve made, I think we’re a better team than we were last year, and I just cannot wait to get going.”
New general manager Ken Holland has made several additions to a roster that will return most of the core from the team that tied two franchise records last season with 48 wins and 105 points. The Kings have made the playoffs in four consecutive seasons, but lost to Edmonton in the first round each time.
Kopitar made his announcement a few hours after the Los Angeles Dodgers announced that left-hander Clayton Kershaw also will end his lengthy career this season. Kershaw joined the Dodgers in 2008, two years after Kopitar arrived in LA.
“Must have been something in the universe for us to decide to do it on the same day,” a laughing Kopitar said of his friend.
Oettinger hopes to get last laugh
Frisco, Texas – Dallas Stars goaltender Jake Oettinger looks forward to one day being able to laugh about how last season ended, when he was quickly pulled after allowing two goals on the only shots he faced in Game 5 of the Western Conference Final.
“In the long run, I feel like I’m gonna look back on it as something that helped me,” Oettinger said Thursday, the opening day of training camp for the Stars. “And when we do win it all, it’s going to be, you know, look back and laugh and feel like that was something I had to go through in order to get to that.”
The Stars have been to the playoffs four consecutive seasons with Oettinger in net. They lost in the conference final the past three seasons, with Edmonton knocking them out the last two.
Oettinger was pulled only 7:09 into that 6-3 loss last May, in what was a curious and much-discussed decision by now-former Stars coach Pete DeBoer. After the game, DeBoer pointed out that Oettinger had lost six of his previous seven playoff games against the Oilers and he was hoping that a goalie switch would spark the team in an elimination game.
Well, that obviously didn’t happen and instead prompted questions about how the move would impact the relationship between the coach and the 26-year-old goalie whose $66 million, eight-year contract extension signed last October kicks in this season. The two didn’t immediately talk in the aftermath of the decision.
“A little more blown out of proportion than it actually was. I think stuff happens, emotions run high and people say and do things on a whim that maybe they look back and regret,” Oettinger said Thursday. “I mean, I’ve done that in my life. I’m sure everyone here has done that. … You just learn from it, and that’s what I did.”
Eight days after their season-ending loss, the Stars fired DeBoer. General manager Jim Nill said then that input from players and fallout from the Oettinger move were not the only factors in the decision to move on from the coach who had a 149-68-29 record in regular-season games and 29-27 in the playoffs over three seasons in Dallas.
Only regret for DeBoer
DeBoer told NHL.com in a story posted this week that he still had no reservations about pulling Oettinger, but did regret how he handled the postgame narrative.
“Listen, we were all to blame for coming up short again, and it starts with me,” DeBoer said in his first public comments since being fired. “It was on me, it was on all the coaches, it was on all the players, it was on the organization as a whole. We all created the disappointment. We were all to blame, not just one guy.”
As for his accurate reference to Oettinger losing six of the previous seven playoffs games to Edmonton over two years when responding to a postgame question about why he made the switch, DeBoer said he should have made it clearer that those losses were on everyone.
“It wasn’t just him. It was all of us,” DeBoer told NHL.com. “It was all of us.”
Asked Thursday about DeBoer’s comments, Oettinger said, “I think he hit the nail on the head with what he said, so let’s leave it at that.”
Young standout goalie
Oettinger was part of the Stars’ impressive 2017 draft class, the 26th overall pick late in the first round after Dallas got standout defenseman Miro Heiskanen with the third pick. High-scoring forward Jason Robertson was chosen 39th overall in the second round.
In 251 regular-season games (242 starts) over five NHL seasons, Oettinger has a 149-66-27 record, .912 save percentage and 2.52 goals against average. He is 32-30 with a .912 save percentage and 2.56 GAA in 65 playoff games, and the only two of those he didn’t start was when making his NHL debut during the pandemic-impacted 2020 season completed in a Canadian bubble.
“He’s, I think, a top-three goalie in the league for sure,” said Mikko Rantanen, the trade deadline acquisition last March who like Oettinger is starting an eight-year contract extension. “That’s a big advantage to have a goalie who you can trust. And he works hard off the ice. You know he wants to get better, which is really good also.”
Unsigned restricted free agents remain
Newark, N.J. – Tom Fitzgerald knows what the ultimate end result will be in the New Jersey Devils’ contract dispute with unsigned restricted free agent Luke Hughes.
“We will be signing him,” the longtime general manager said Thursday.
Eventually. Still, Hughes does not have a contract for the upcoming NHL season and, as a result, is not at training camp. The same goes for Anaheim’s Mason McTavish and Nashville’s Luke Evangelista, and while opening night is still more than two weeks away, not having young players on the ice for practice sessions is less than ideal for all parties involved.
“I do believe every day you lose, it is an impact on a player,” Fitzgerald said. “So, from our end, yeah there’s urgency to get him here or to continue to strive to that common goal of getting a deal. I believe on their end, too, there’s some urgency.”
Like Fitzgerald, Ducks GM Pat Verbeek expressed disappointment about not having McTavish around. The 22-year-old forward returned home and was reportedly skating with the junior Ottawa 67’s of the Ontario Hockey League, rather than spending time at the rink with new coach Joel Quenneville and his staff.
“We have virtually a whole new coaching staff, and the group is really excited like I’ve never seen before,” Verbeek said. “There’s a new system that’s getting implemented. There’s a lot of things to learn, and it takes a lot of reps to get it under each player’s belt. So, when Mason gets here, he’s got a lot of catching up to do.”
Evangelista might not have the high-end-prospect expectations of Hughes or McTavish, but with the Predators looking to get back to the playoffs after being arguably the biggest bust in the league last season, they’d like to have their full group on the ice as soon as possible. A deal of some sort needs to get done first.
“We’re in sort of a daily process,” GM Barry Trotz said. “Obviously we love Luke and that, so we’re going to work through that and see if we can get him here.”
Hughes, a brother of Jack, the Devils’ top center, could have a big role in New Jersey whenever he gets there. Work remains on hammering out a contract, though Fitzgerald did not express concern about fitting Hughes in with the remaining cap space the Devils have.
Fitzgerald said he and agent Pat Brisson are grinding through negotiations, and that he texted with Hughes on Wednesday, “knowing that we will get through this at some point.”
“We just don’t know when that point is,” Fitzgerald said. “The top priority is signing Luke Hughes to a long-term deal, and that’s our goal. It hasn’t changed.”
There are only two other unsigned restricted free agents. Vegas’ Alexander Holtz is in camp on a professional tryout agreement until a contract is agreed on, while Rasmus Kupari, whose rights are owned by Winnipeg, is signed to play this season in Switzerland.
Golden Knights GM Kelly McCrimmon does not anticipate any kind of problem getting Holtz signed.
“It’s an important camp for Alex,” McCrimmon said. “Sometimes those players don’t participate in camp. I think everybody agreed it was best for him that he did, so that’s his status.”
Verbeek: McTavish’s holdout ‘disappointing’
Irvine, Calif. – Center Mason McTavish is not in training camp with the Anaheim Ducks amid a contract dispute, and general manager Pat Verbeek says it’s ”disappointing” to begin preparations for a new season without the key forward.
The 22-year-old McTavish is a restricted free agent, but he has not been able to agree on a long-term contract or a bridge deal with the Ducks over months of negotiations. He was skating with his teammates in Orange County earlier this week, but he had gone home to Canada when the Ducks held their first full practices under new coach Joel Quenneville on Thursday.
“It’s disappointing that he’s not here, obviously,” Verbeek said. “We have virtually a whole new coaching staff, and the group is really excited like I’ve never seen before. There’s a new system that’s getting implemented. There’s a lot of things to learn, and it takes a lot of reps to get it under each player’s belt. So when Mason gets here, he’s got a lot of catching up to do.”
McTavish has spent the past three full seasons with the Ducks, who drafted him third overall in 2021. He has 60 goals and 80 assists in 229 games for Anaheim after posting career bests of 22 goals and 30 assists last season.
Anaheim expects McTavish to be its second-line center for the foreseeable future, and Verbeek traded away Trevor Zegras this summer in part because of his long-term belief in McTavish and Leo Carlsson as the team’s top two pivots. But the Ducks and McTavish’s representatives are still locked in a dispute that is now jeopardizing McTavish’s ability to contribute in a new structure under Quenneville, Verbeek said.
“I mean, I’ve been through this scenario, OK?” Verbeek said. “It’s not easy to join mid-camp, or miss the whole camp. Camp is a very, very important part of a player’s preparedness to go into the season. And so from that aspect, it’s disappointing.”
During his playing career, Verbeek was reportedly the first player in New Jersey Devils history to hold out in a contract dispute – although it lasted just one day in 1991.
Verbeek has had a few prolonged contract standoffs with young players since taking over the Ducks’ front office in February 2022. Defenseman Jamie Drysdale and Zegras both held out of training camp in 2023 as restricted free agents, but both eventually signed three-year deals – only for Verbeek to trade both players to Philadelphia 17 months apart.
Verbeek and forward Troy Terry also had a lengthy negotiation before they agreed on a seven-year, $49 million deal in August 2023 for the four-time 20-goal scorer.
Verbeek said his talks with McTavish’s camp are active, and they’ve “made a lot of progress over the summer, but we’re not there yet. Until we get there, he won’t be here. … We’re closing in, I would say, but we’re not there yet.”
The Ducks have missed the playoffs in a franchise-record seven consecutive seasons, but they made a 21-point improvement in the standings last year. Verbeek on Thursday reiterated his expectation that Anaheim will make the playoffs this season under Quenneville, the second-winningest coach in NHL history.
But that would be tough without McTavish, whose two-way play and scoring acumen seem vital to the Ducks’ chances of success. He was Anaheim’s second-leading scorer last season with 52 points.
“We all understand what situation he’s in,” Ducks captain Radko Gudas said. “Obviously we would love to have him here. He’s a huge part of this group. We love him as a guy. … Unfortunately, they haven’t been able to get the deal done, but we can’t wait to get him around here and get him up to speed. He’s very important for us, but we’re all hoping this is going to get resolved as soon as possible.”
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