The Chicago Blackhawks announced Oct. 2 the club assigned a number of players to their AHL affiliate, the Rockford IceHogs, including forward Frank Nazar and defenseman Louis Crevier. However, the biggest name in the press release was defender Kevin Korchinski.
The Blackhawks’ 2022 first-round pick, taken No. 7 overall, made the team last season as a 19-year-old, scoring five goals and 10 assists for 15 points, averaging 19:37 of ice time in 76 regular-season games. Because he was only 19, if he didn’t make the team, he would have to be sent back to the Western Hockey League’s Seattle Thunderbirds.
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Some feel like this would have stunted his development, as the 6-foot-1 defender had already produced at a point-per-game pace in his last two WHL seasons, scoring 15 goals and 123 assists for 138 points in just 121 regular-season games and helping the Thunderbirds win the Ed Chynoweth Cup in 2023. Adding to the situation the lack of depth on the Blackhawks’ blue line, and it made sense for Korchinski to stay in Chicago for the 2023-24 season.
But now that Korchinski is 20 and the club has brought in a few veteran defenseman to fill the gap through the team’s rebuild, there was a path for the young blueliner to be sent down to the minors, and it may end up being the best thing for his development.
The AHL is the Right Move for Korchinski
During his rookie season with the Blackhawks, Korchinski made plenty of mistakes, often getting beat to the outside by an opposing forward, losing his man in front or giving up too much space on a rush. But there were flashes of brilliance: making 100-foot passes, effortless zone entries and rushes up the ice that will frustrate an opponent’s neutral zone trap for years to come.
Just one month into the 2023-24 campaign, I wrote that Korchinski was already the Blackhawks’ best offensive defenseman. I got some pushback, with readers saying Seth Jones was still the No. 1 option, and that Korchinski had only played a dozen games at that point.
I’ll concede that being an NHL rookie defenseman is one of the hardest jobs in professional sports, as the speed and physicality of the game is entirely unique to anything you’ve experienced before. There were definitely moments throughout the season that you could see Korchinski hesitate in the corner with a forechecker, or lose a puck battle, or panic when he realized he didn’t have the amount of time he thought he did in his own end. These are all things that new NHLers have to deal with upon entering the league, and Korchinski was no exception.
But what made him exceptional was his ability to drive play, how he is able to break out of his end and attack the neutral zone with zero fear. In my years of covering hockey and speaking with coaches and scouts, one of the top items on everyone’s wish list is a defenseman with puck handling skills and the ability to manufacture offensive opportunities out of thin air, someone who can make forecheckers miss and find the open teammate. If Korchinski continues on this path, get ready to see a decade worth of tap-in goals that he sets up.
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But before we get there, he needs to hone his game, at least enough that he can comfortably go against any team’s top two lines. Korchinski has struggled through the preseason, and the Blackhawks’ Oct. 1 preseason game against the Minnesota Wild might have been his worst of the fall, going minus-three and giving up some brutal turnovers. After watching that game and the rest of his performances through the fall, you wouldn’t blame Chicago for wanting him to start the season with Rockford.
Last season, Blackhawks’ Head Coach Luke Richardson tried to protect Korchinski from the hardest assignments last season, but you can only do so much when you’re the road team and your opponent gets last change, or if the other team has a second line that rivals other squads’ first lines. There were too many examples of the Korchinski getting burned, and if the Blackhawks expect to take a step forward this year, they can’t afford to let their young guys make mistakes the way they did last season.
Chicago General Manager Kyle Davidson brought in two veteran blue liners in T.J. Brodie and Alec Martinez to help play crucial minutes and unburden Seth Jones and Alex Vlasic. Their arrival also gives Korchinski the chance to develop in a league where there isn’t 18,000 pairs of eyeballs on him every single night, and a dozen or so reporters with stretched arms and voice recorders asking why he allowed an opponent to get open in the crease and bang in the game-winning goal.
Starting the season with Rockford gives the 20-year-old permission to play top minutes – including on the power play – and get better acclimated with the pro game. We know Korchinski has all the tools to be a top-four, offensively gifted defenseman in the NHL. It’s up to him to put those tools to use.
