The Blackhawks are expected to be fairly quiet when the NHL free-agent market opens at 11 a.m. Saturday.
General manager Kyle Davidson said Thursday he’s “looking at a couple options,” but he certainly won’t be too busy.
The Hawks consider their acquisitions of Taylor Hall, Nick Foligno and Corey Perry in trades earlier this week — as well as their selection of Connor Bedard in the draft, of course — to be their most significant offseason additions.
One area Davidson could attempt to address is right-side defensive depth, given the Hawks currently have only four right-handed defensemen under contract: Seth Jones, Connor Murphy, Nikita Zaitsev and minor-leaguer Louis Crevier.
Some possible free-agent targets in that vein include Connor Clifton (whom defensive assistant coach Kevin Dean coached with the Bruins), Luke Schenn, Justin Holl, Erik Johnson, Kevin Shattenkirk, Travis Hamonic, Troy Stecher, Michael Stone, Ethan Bear, Cal Foote and Kyle Burroughs. The very best right-handed blue-liners — John Klingberg, Matt Dumba, Radko Gudas and Scott Mayfield — likely will be above their desired price range.
Before this week’s trades, the Hawks had been connected to upper-end forward free agents Max Domi (who made a great impression on the organization last season) and J.T. Compher (who hails from the Chicago suburbs). It’s unclear if there’s still a spot in the forward depth chart for either of those guys, though.
Meanwhile, Jonathan Toews’ contract will officially expire Saturday. The same will be the case for Anders Bjork, Jujhar Khaira, Austin Wagner, Caleb Jones, Andreas Englund, Alex Stalock and seven minor-leaguers. That means the Hawks will enter July with 39 contracts (out of a maximum of 50) on the books — with one more contract slot reserved for Philipp Kurashev, who is a restricted free agent and will be re-signed eventually.
Around the league, the top free agents in an overall weak class are defensemen Dmitri Orlov and Ryan Graves and forwards Ryan O’Reilly, Vladimir Tarasenko, Tyler Bertuzzi, Matt Duchene (surprisingly bought out Friday by the Predators), Alex Killorn and, of course, Patrick Kane. None of them will end up in Chicago, but it will be interesting to see where they do land.
Perry gets $4 million
Davidson moved almost as quickly to sign Perry after acquiring his rights as he did with Foligno.
The Hawks officially inked Perry — the 38-year-old veteran forward still despised by many Hawks fans for his Ducks antics — to a one-year, $4 million contract Friday, matching the deal Foligno signed.
That marks a whopping four-times increase over Perry’s $1 million salary-cap hit with the Lightning last season. The Hawks aren’t worried about the cap, and Perry probably wanted a financial incentive to spend one of his final seasons on a non-playoff contender, but it’s a stunningly large payday nonetheless.
This and that
Chicagoans’ first opportunity to see Bedard and the rest of the Hawks’ new draft class in-person will be at the Cubs-Guardians game Sunday at Wrigley Field. Bedard and the group are scheduled to throw out the first pitch(es).
• The Hawks held an introductory event for the group Friday at Fifth Third Arena, at which Bedard said he has already received congratulatory texts from Kane and Sidney Crosby — among surely many others.
• Davidson said Thursday the Hawks plan to leave spots open in their NHL defensive depth chart for their many promising defensive prospects to fight for during training camp, which will begin Sept. 21. Kevin Korchinski, Alex Vlasic, Wyatt Kaiser, Isaak Phillips and Ethan Del Mastro all will be contenders.
