On Friday of this week, Marian Hossa is hosting a final game to put a cap on his incredible career. He shared the full lineup of friends he has signed up for the game on his Instagram and… holy $#!+ did he ever get the entire band(s) back together! It looks like it will be a classic Blackhawks vs Red Wings affair with a few ringers — Zdeno Chara, Daniel Alfredsson… you know, just Hall of Famers who are friends of the program. It is pretty cool that Teuvo Teravainen is still close enough with these Blackhawks that he’s on the invite list, too. I do want to know if this is going to be the captains — Nik Lidstrom and Jonathan Toews — rolling out paper-rock-scissors to decide who gets Chara and who gets Alfredsson.
Ben Pope at the Chicago Sun-Times took to the task of predicting Connor Bedard‘s production in his rookie season. He did a nice job of putting out the historical performances of some other former No. 1 overall picks with plenty of statistical context. Pope arrives at a the following: “if McDavid hadn’t fractured his clavicle in 2015-16, his stats suggest he would’ve produced 87 points in 82 games. That number might be the best-case scenario for Bedard this season.”Love me some Ben Pope, but I’m going to take issue with one piece of his analysis.On one hand, Bedard’s supporting cast on the Hawks will be significantly worse than the average supporting cast of those who set the historical precedents. The Hawks’ decision to tank to maximize their lottery odds worked out well, but doing so left a bare-bones depth chart around Bedard, even with the acquisition of [Taylor] Hall.
While the tank did strip the roster down the roster at the end of last season, my personal opinion is that the roster they’ll start this season with is significantly better than the one we saw in March and April. You’ve read it here before, but Hall is the perfect fit for Bedard’s first season. But let’s not sleep on Lukas Reichel on the second line.And having Nick Foligno, Corey Perry and Ryan Donato in the mix replaces three bottom-line caliber players with veterans who can give you 12-15 goals. The Blackhawks had six guys score at least 12 goals last year, and the top two goal scorers — Andreas Athanasiou and Taylor Raddysh (20 each) — are back. Most people are projecting both Bedard and Hall to have more than 50 points each; last year’s team was led by 49 from Max Domi. I think this year’s team will be a better, deeper, more balanced offense than last year’s team.The signing of veteran goaltender Martin Jones by Toronto this week means the Leafs’ depth chart to start the season will have him behind Ilya Samsonov and Joseph Woll. You need three viable goaltenders in the NHL now, so it was a good, low-risk, low-cost move for the Leafs. Samsonov’s arbitration win complicates Toronto’s cap situation, but that’s three decent netminders for the Leafs to start the year.The Canucks signed former Blackhawks forward Pius Suter on a two-year contract with a $1.6M AAV.Finally, Bear Down!Tab is the Lead Blackhawks voice for BN. He is the author of two books about the Blackhawks, most recently "Chicago Blackhawks: An Illustrated Timeline" (Reedy Press, 2021). Find him on Twitter at @The1Tab
