eNewspaper
Sign up for email newsletters
Sign up for email newsletters
eNewspaper
Trending:
The Chicago Blackhawks limped into the NHL’s Winter Olympic break with a 4-0 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Feb. 4. The Columbus cannon shot down an already defeated Hawks team as they skated to their locker rooms in silence with heads down.
Now, they get to put all that behind them.
The Hawks will spend this week at the Blackhawks Ice Center preparing for their first game back on Feb. 26 at the Nashville Predators. The locker room vibes were high as the team initially (and politely) shooed the media away to watch Team Canada’s intense 4-3 overtime Olympic win against Czechia.
A few days off might’ve been what the Hawks needed.
“It’s not normal to have this many days off in the season, so (the break) came at us at a good time for some guys,” team captain Nick Foligno said. “I want to play, and especially watching the Olympics now, and these guys playing here, like ‘all right, I want to get back going here.’”
The Hawks are 22-26-9, sixth in the Central Division and 10 points out of a wild-card playoff spot with 25 games remaining. Their season isn’t over, though, as it would have been in previous years.
AHL All-Star Classic came to Rockford for the 1st time, and the IceHogs — and their fans — represented well
A string of wins is what the young team needs, as Folingo said postgame in Columbus. For the first time, the team captain believes he has a Hawks team that can put together a run.
“There’s an understanding and an eagerness to become a great team in this room, and I think that’s what you need first and foremost,” Foligno said. “Then you need to put it into action, not just wanting it, you’ve got to apply it.
“We limped in (to the break), we wanted to do it, but we weren’t really doing the things necessary to do that. I think having some time to watch our game and to fine-tune some areas that we’ve probably struggled in is going to help us come out of this.”
Hawks coach Jeff Blashill agreed that his guys needed the time away. Teuvo Teräväinen is the only one in Milan, Italy, so the Hawks have a majority of their players at practice, an advantage other NHL rosters won’t have.
“We got a chance to reset, if you look throughout the league, it’s a pretty good opportunity for us,” Blashill said. “We have (one) guy playing in the Olympics, so a bunch of guys got the chance to kind of reset and rest.
“We’ve got a whole bunch of guys playing really important minutes that have never really been through this schedule. I thought guys probably needed a break and needed a reset opportunity, that’s what this is. We also get six practices to try to hit the ground running. Does that guarantee success? No, but every team probably hits that break at different points.”
And the week of practices is a perfect place to start. If the Hawks want to become a playoff team, it begins here.
“We only have one guy that’s away at the Olympics, so we’re together practicing (and) there’s a lot of teams that have (multiple) guys (away) so they’re not really able to get the reps that we’re going to get,” Foligno said. “We should use that to our advantage and make sure we come out of this like we got better.
“(Blashill) and the coaching staff really understand that, and I think the guys are excited about that opportunity to come out of this and feel really good about our game.”
Defensemen Sam Rinzel and Kevin Korchinski have been recalled from the Rockford IceHogs. The additions of the two blueliners make seven on the Hawks roster.
Korchinski represented the IceHogs last week in the AHL All-Star Classic with left winger Nick Lardis and Rockford team captain Brett Seney. He has posted 23 points (two goals, 21 assists) with Rockford this year in addition to two games on the Hawks roster (one assist).
“I thought he left the last time playing better that second night than the first night,” Blashill said. “He’s done a solid job, so (he) just (has) to put himself in a position that, if he gets an opportunity to play, that he plays well.”
It’s Rinzel’s second recall of the season after being assigned to the IceHogs during the Olympic break. He logged 14 points (two goals, 12 assists) in Rockford, as well as nine points (two goals, seven assists) in 31 NHL games.
Defenseman Wyatt Kaiser has been placed on injured reserve, retroactive to Feb. 4. There’s no timetable for his return, but Blashill said that he will play again this season.
On Monday, Blashill said that he wanted Connor Bedard to play a “true center role.” The plan is for the star forward to take face-offs again.
Copyright 2026 Chicago Tribune. All rights reserved. The use of any content on this website for the purpose of training artificial intelligence systems, algorithms, machine learning models, text and data mining, or similar use is strictly prohibited without explicit written consent.