{"id":650848,"date":"2026-05-18T19:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T19:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/650848\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T19:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T19:02:09","slug":"chicago-blackhawks-shopping-mikheyev-negotiating-rights-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/650848\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Blackhawks Shopping Mikheyev Negotiating Rights \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Chicago Blackhawks are preparing for a potential split with veteran winger Ilya Mikheyev<\/a>. Speaking on the May 18th edition of the 32 Thoughts: The Podcast<\/a>, Sportsnet\u2019s Elliotte Friedman reported that Chicago has made the pending unrestricted free agent\u2019s negotiating rights available for trade after the two sides failed to make meaningful progress on a contract extension.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mikheyev, 31, is coming off a highly productive two-year stint in Chicago after being acquired from Vancouver. He followed up a 20-goal debut campaign with the Blackhawks by posting 18 goals and a career-high 36 points in 77 games during the 2025-26 season. Beyond his offensive contribution, Mikheyev served as a heavily relied upon, speedy defensive forward and a core penalty-kill specialist for head coach Jeff Blashill<\/a>, helping lift Chicago\u2019s short-handed unit to a surprising second-place finish in the league. \u00a0<\/p>\n

With the Blackhawks still navigating their rebuilding process, and focusing heavily on a looming extension for superstar Connor Bedard<\/a>, general manager Kyle Davidson<\/a> is looking to secure a late-round draft asset rather than losing the Russian winger for nothing on July 1.<\/p>\n

Offseason Options for Mikheyev<\/p>\n

As Mikheyev approaches what will likely be the last major payday of his career, several pathways lie ahead:<\/p>\n

\u2022 A Pre-Free Agency Trade and Sign: A playoff contender looking to skip the open-market bidding war could surrender a 2026 sixth- or seventh-round draft pick to secure exclusive early negotiating rights, locking Mikheyev into a multi-year deal before July.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Targeting Contenders via Open Market: In a relatively thin free-agent class, Mikheyev\u2019s combination of top-tier 5-on-5 defense, penalty-killing utility, and secondary scoring support makes him a highly coveted middle-six target for Stanley Cup hopefuls.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2022 Maximizing A Payday with Cap-Flush Teams: Teams with abundant cap space looking to transition from rebuilding to competing could offer him a premium short-term AAV to inject veteran defensive structure and speed into their young lineups.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Chicago Blackhawks are preparing for a potential split with veteran winger Ilya Mikheyev. Speaking on the May…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":650849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[4824,280762,385,99],"class_list":["post-650848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-chicago-blackhawks","tag-ilya-mikheyev","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}