{"id":495213,"date":"2026-02-21T18:51:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T18:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/495213\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T18:51:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T18:51:08","slug":"blackhawks-sign-olivier-rodrigue-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/495213\/","title":{"rendered":"Blackhawks Sign Olivier Rodrigue \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Blackhawks have added some extra goaltending depth for the stretch run.\u00a0 The team <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/blackhawks\/news\/release-blackhawks-sign-olivier-rodrigue-to-one-year-two-way-contract\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">announced<\/a> that they\u2019ve signed goaltender <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/r\/rodriol01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.prohockeyrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-02-21_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Olivier Rodrigue<\/a> to a one-year, two-way contract for the remainder of the season.\u00a0 The deal will carry a $775K cap charge at the NHL level while the two-way salary was not disclosed.<\/p>\n<p>The 25-year-old was a second-round pick of Edmonton back in 2018, going 62nd overall.\u00a0 However, he wasn\u2019t able to make much of a push for NHL playing time over his five seasons in their system.\u00a0 Aside from a two-game stint with the Oilers last season, Rodrigue played exclusively in their minor league system between AHL Bakersfield and ECHL Wichita.\u00a0 Last season, Rodrigue posted a 3.12 GAA with a .897 SV% in 42 games with the Condors and became a Group Six unrestricted free agent back in the summer.<\/p>\n<p>It took until mid-August for Rodrigue to find a team as he wound up signing a one-year deal with Barys Astana of the KHL.\u00a0 However, he suffered an injury less than a month later, leading to his release before he had even played a game for them.\u00a0 Since then, Rodrigue hasn\u2019t played but this contract suggests that he\u2019s now cleared to return to game action.<\/p>\n<p>Presumably, Rodrigue\u2019s signing comes in response to prospect goalie <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eliteprospects.com\/player\/674131\/stanislav-berezhnoy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Stanislav Berezhnoy<\/a>, who received a 20-game <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.prohockeyrumors.com\/2026\/02\/two-prospects-receive-20-game-suspensions-in-ahl.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">suspension<\/a> from the AHL earlier this week for violating the terms of the AHL\/PHPA Performance Enhancing Substance Program.\u00a0 Chicago\u2019s intent is likely to have Rodrigue serve as the backup to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/c\/commedr01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.prohockeyrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-02-21_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Drew Commesso<\/a> for the stretch run while evaluating his possibility as a fit for next season as well.\u00a0 With 131 career AHL regular season appearances under his belt where he has a 2.92 GAA and a .905 SV%, Rodrigue should be well-suited to fill that role.<\/p>\n<p>To do so, Chicago will first have to successfully run Rodrigue through waivers before he can be assigned to the IceHogs.\u00a0 While the NHL is in a trade freeze at the moment, waivers are still allowable during this period so it wouldn\u2019t be shocking to see Rodrigue on waivers in a few hours when the next waiver period opens up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Blackhawks have added some extra goaltending depth for the stretch run.\u00a0 The team announced that they\u2019ve signed&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":495214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,7520,575,249601,85,206],"class_list":["post-495213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-chicago-blackhawks","tag-nhl","tag-olivier-rodrigue","tag-sports","tag-transactions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}