{"id":420271,"date":"2026-01-21T19:18:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T19:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/420271\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T19:18:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T19:18:13","slug":"blackhawks-expected-to-activate-frank-nazar-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/420271\/","title":{"rendered":"Blackhawks Expected To Activate Frank Nazar \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Chicago Blackhawks are on the precipice of having a fully healthy forward core. <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ByScottPowers\/status\/2014039068212969706\" rel=\"nofollow\">According to The Athletic\u2019s Scott Powers<\/a>, the Blackhawks expected youngster <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/n\/nazarfr01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.prohockeyrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-21_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Frank Nazar<\/a> to return to the lineup tomorrow, meaning he\u2019ll be activated from the injured reserve.<\/p>\n<p>Chicago has an open roster spot, so they won\u2019t need to make a corresponding roster move. Still, they already have 14 forwards, so it wouldn\u2019t be surprising to see the Blackhawks swap a depth forward for a defenseman in the AHL.<\/p>\n<p>Nazar, 22, has been absent from the Blackhawks\u2019 roster for a month. After taking a puck to the face, he broke his jaw in Chicago\u2019s December 20th matchup against the Ottawa Senators. He has been skating for the last few days and will make his official return tomorrow against the Carolina Hurricanes.<\/p>\n<p>Before the injury, Nazar was having a solid junior campaign. Registering six goals and 21 points in 33 games, Nazar remains only five points away from matching last year\u2019s totals, which took 53 games to reach. Being one of the best offensive forwards on the team, he\u2019s earned a huge bump in ATOI this season, going from 15:52 last season to 18:15 this year.<\/p>\n<p>Still, Nazar was clearly slowing down in the lead-up to the injury. The Detroit, MI native had scored five goals and 13 points in his first 17 games of the year. In the next 16 games, in which the Blackhawks had recorded a 3-11-2 record, Nazar had only registered one goal and eight points.\u00a0Since he exited the lineup in late December, Chicago has improved, managing a 7-6-1 record in his absence.<\/p>\n<p>Regardless, despite missing a month of action, Nazar remains tied for fourth on the team in scoring. He\u2019s largely considered the highest-upside forward option for the Blackhawks behind Connor Bedard, and the team will hope that he can maintain his health through the conclusion of the 2025-26 campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Chicago Blackhawks are on the precipice of having a fully healthy forward core. According to The Athletic\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290751,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5115],"tags":[521,37,96,5263,800,5,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-420271","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-blackhawks","8":"tag-blackhawks","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-blackhawks","11":"tag-chicagoblackhawks","12":"tag-frank-nazar","13":"tag-hockey","14":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115934705160282123","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}