Following a pair of blowout losses over the weekend, the Chicago Blackhawks flew home from the West Coast and made two roster transactions on Monday afternoon.
Defenseman Sam Rinzel and forward Landon Slaggert were both assigned to the Rockford IceHogs of the AHL, which leaves the Blackhawks with only 18 healthy skaters on the NHL roster. Chicago did not recall any players from Rockford in a corresponding move.
#Blackhawks have assigned Sam Rinzel & Landon Slaggert to the Rockford IceHogs of the AHL.
Slaggert had played just once over the last 8 games.
Rinzel has been struggling & saw his ice time dip in recent weeks. He had played less than 15 min in 11 of his last 13 games. pic.twitter.com/7AWHRZMrJR
— Jack Bushman (@JackBushman2) December 8, 2025
It’s the correct decision by the Blackhawks and GM Kyle Davidson to send both players down to the minors, as Rinzel and Slaggert were playing minimal roles with the NHL club in recent weeks.
For Rinzel, a Calder Trophy favorite heading into the campaign, the demotion is disappointing, although not surprising. It’s been a struggle-filled first full season at the professional level for the 2022 first-round pick (No. 25 overall).
Rinzel hasn’t been the consistent point producer that many expected him to be as a rookie, and he’s also had issues with the defensive side of the game. Rinzel thrived in his first nine NHL contests late last year after signing his entry-level contract, already looking capable of playing major minutes as a 20-year-old directly out of college. But he’s been a shell of himself so far in 2025-26.
Through 28 games this season, Rinzel has recorded only one goal and seven assists for eight points. While that’s good for third among all Blackhawks defensemen in points, it’s still not quite the production he was expected to put up as a top-of-the-lineup player. Rinzel opened the year alongside defensive stalwart Alex Vlasic on the top pairing and quarterbacked the top power-play unit, but was removed from both positions in the past month because of his inconsistency. Artyom Levshunov has since been the more effective blue-liner between the two in those spots, which led to Rinzel’s ice time falling off a cliff.
Since playing over 20 minutes in five of the team’s first nine games, Rinzel has played fewer than 15 minutes in 11 of his last 13 appearances. His role has been shrinking and shrinking; meanwhile, Levshunov has been given more and more opportunities, and it’s been a justified choice by head coach Jeff Blashill. Rinzel has gone without a point in six of his past eight outings and has been on the ice for 11 goals against during that stretch.
It’s time for Rinzel, still only 21, to have a reset in Rockford, where he’ll play in all situations — power play, penalty kill, and at even strength — against some lesser competition for the IceHogs. Hopefully, some time in the AHL will clean up his defensive kinks and help his confidence come back. While it was in a small sample size last season, Rinzel showcased the incredible potential he possesses as a 6-foot-4, right-handed defenseman who moves like a deer on the ice. The flashes of that were just too few and far between this year, but the Blackhawks know what he’s capable of.
For Slaggert, this is the more straightforward of the two Blackhawks’ transactions to break down. The 2020 third-round pick (No. 79 overall) has been in the lineup once in eight games since Nov. 23 and played only 10 games all season. Still only 23 years old, the team would much prefer Slaggert to play consistently in the AHL, rather than regularly getting scratched at the NHL level.
The 2025-26 campaign got off to a sour note for Slaggert in training camp, as he suffered an injury and an illness that kept him off the ice for multiple weeks. He originally began camp on the Blackhawks’ third line with Jason Dickinson and Ilya Mikheyev, but has fallen out of a consistent lineup spot with the ascensions of fellow youngsters Oliver Moore and Ryan Greene.
When the Blackhawks recalled Slaggert from Rockford on Nov. 12, they needed another forward on the NHL roster with injuries to Jason Dickinson and Andre Burakovsky. But now that Dickinson and Burakovsky are both healthy, and captain Nick Foligno figures to return from his hand injury in the next couple of weeks, Slaggert wouldn’t get much NHL action in the near future.
Looking at the bigger picture, Slaggert now finds himself in a somewhat precarious position with more and more of Davidson’s high-end draft selections arriving on the pro scene. The internal competition that’s quietly brewing between a jam-packed prospect pool is starting to play out, and there’s not going to be enough room for everyone to be a puzzle piece in Chicago’s rebuild. Slaggert hasn’t necessarily proved his worth to the Blackhawks yet, and that’s something he’ll need to do to remain part of the organization for the long haul.
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