{"id":445453,"date":"2026-02-04T17:36:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T17:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/445453\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T17:36:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T17:36:14","slug":"i-dont-have-the-last-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/445453\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I don\u2019t have the last word\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/chicago-blackhawks\/16\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/chicago-blackhawks\/16\" target=\"_blank\">Chicago Blackhawks<\/a> forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/ilya-mikheyev\/8481624\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/player\/ilya-mikheyev\/8481624\" target=\"_blank\">Ilya Mikheyev<\/a> is hoping to stay put at the trade deadline, but the pending unrestricted free agent knows the decision is out of his hands. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The 31-year-old forward has 11 goals and 23 points in 51 games this season while carrying a cap hit of $4.04 million after the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/vancouver-canucks\/23\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/vancouver-canucks\/23\" target=\"_blank\">Vancouver Canucks<\/a> retained 15 per cent in trading him to Chicago in June 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cI can\u2019t control this, so I\u2019m not thinking about this,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/7019056\/2026\/02\/04\/blackhawks-mikheyev-trade-deadline-levshunov-sorenson-olympics\/?source=emp_shared_article\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/7019056\/2026\/02\/04\/blackhawks-mikheyev-trade-deadline-levshunov-sorenson-olympics\/?source=emp_shared_article\">Mikheyev told The Athletic in a story posted Wednesday<\/a>. \u201cLet\u2019s see what happens. I don\u2019t have the last word. Nobody\u2019s going to be asking (me), so why should I worry about this?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Mikheyev has carved out a key role with the Blackhawks as their top penalty killer, sitting fifth among all NHL forwards with an average of 2:51 ofshort-handedice time per game. He is also averaging a career-high 17:43 of ice time per game.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The Omsk, Russia native was moved two years ago amid a falling out with the Canucks two seasons into a four-year, $19 million contract that is now coming to an end. The Blackhawks sent a fourth-round pick to the Canucks to acquire Mikheyev.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cVancouver, it was a different story,\u201d Mikheyev said. \u201cHere, I feel more confidence, I play more, and it just feels like home. Vancouver, it wasn\u2019t like that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cWe\u2019ll see in the summer, we\u2019ll see what happens before the deadline,\u201d he added of his future. \u201cBut I like it here, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\"> Debuting in the NHL in 2019 with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/toronto-maple-leafs\/10\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/toronto-maple-leafs\/10\" target=\"_blank\">Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a>, Mikheyev has 91 goals and 188 points in 401 career games.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The rebuilding Blackhawks have fallen to eight points back of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/seattle-kraken\/55\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/seattle-kraken\/55\" target=\"_blank\">Seattle Kraken<\/a> for the final wild-card spot and are on track to miss the playoffs for the sixth straight season and eighth time in the past nine years. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chicago Blackhawks forward Ilya Mikheyev is hoping to stay put at the trade deadline, but the pending unrestricted&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4759,32837,5,54174,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-445453","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-chicago-blackhawks-sports-hockey-team-team-nhl-api-16","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-ilya-mikheyev-sports-hockey-player-player-nhl-api-8481624","12":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116013575921513216","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445453","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=445453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}