{"id":666843,"date":"2026-05-26T22:15:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T22:15:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/666843\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T22:15:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T22:15:07","slug":"central-notes-blackhawks-defense-sturm-no-4-pick-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/666843\/","title":{"rendered":"Central Notes: Blackhawks Defense, Sturm, No. 4 Pick \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Chicago Blackhawks\u2019 priority in the offseason will be \u201cadding a quality defenseman,\u201d writes Scott Powers of The Athletic<\/a>. There has been some belief that Chicago might be aggressive in pursuing a young top-six winger who can partner with franchise center Connor Bedard<\/a>, and that still may be on the table, but Powers writes that the Blackhawks are likely to seek defensive help to stabilize a blueline that featured several young defensemen last season.<\/p>\n

According to Powers, the Blackhawks are hoping their young defensemen, such as Artyom Levshunov<\/a> and Sam Rinzel<\/a>, are able to take steps forward, but also acknowledge that they \u201cneed some support.\u201d Don\u2019t look for the Blackhawks to prioritize right-shot defensemen, though. Powers would \u201cbe surprised if\u201d Chicago was looking for a right-shot blueliner to compete with Rinzel and Levshunov, who will be all but assured spots in the opening-night lineup barring some sort of steep unexpected decline in form.<\/p>\n

Other notes from the Central Division:<\/p>\n

The Minnesota Wild may be forced to choose between veteran fourth-line centers Nico Sturm<\/a> and Michael McCarron<\/a> over the next month, write Joe Smith and Michael Russo of The Athletic<\/a>. The Wild traded a second-round pick to acquire McCarron, a pending UFA, from the Nashville Predators. McCarron indicated in his end-of-season media availability that he will be seeking to maximize his financial security with his next contract. If the Wild decide to pay the market price for McCarron, they could be forced to move Sturm. The 31-year-old has one more year left on his deal at a $2MM cap hit.
\nThe Blackhawks \u201care preparing for the possibility\u201d that the upcoming draft\u2019s top three forward prospects (Gavin McKenna<\/a>, Ivar Stenberg<\/a>, Caleb Malhotra<\/a>) aren\u2019t available at No. 4, writes Powers<\/a>. Such an outcome would put the Blackhawks in a position where the next few top-ranked players are all likely to be defensemen. Chicago has already invested a recent top pick in a right-shot defenseman (Levshunov, the 2024 No. 2 pick) so according to Powers, they could be hesitant to pick someone such as OHL defenseman Chase Reid<\/a>. The top left-shot options expected to be on the board are WHL blueliner Carson Carels<\/a> and Latvian international Alberts Smits<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Chicago Blackhawks\u2019 priority in the offseason will be \u201cadding a quality defenseman,\u201d writes Scott Powers of The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":666844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[4824,4828,385,185921,99],"class_list":["post-666843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-chicago-blackhawks","tag-minnesota-wild","tag-nhl","tag-nico-sturm","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666843","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=666843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/666844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}