recently ranked Pridham<\/a> as the Blackhawks\u2019 13th-best prospect.<\/p>\n\u2022 The only other prospect whose draft rights are set to expire on June 1 is forward Riku Tohila. Tohila was drafted in the seventh round in 2022 and has played in Finland\u2019s lower divisions since being selected.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Teuvo Ter\u00e4v\u00e4inen broke a finger while playing for Finland at the World Championships and recently underwent surgery to repair it. His recovery time is expected to be four to six weeks. Ter\u00e4v\u00e4inen was playing well in the tournament before the injury occurred. Considering he also played in the Olympics, it had been a long season for him.<\/p>\n
\u2022 The Blackhawks aren\u2019t as confident as a lot of draft experts that Ivar Stenberg will still be available at No. 4. They\u2019re obviously preparing for every scenario, but they don\u2019t expect him to be there.<\/p>\n
\u2022 As The Athletic\u2019s Pierre LeBrun reported on Wednesday, the Blackhawks are open to trading the No. 4 pick, but I\u2019d go even further than that. The Blackhawks are open to trading any of their picks over the next two drafts. They\u2019re more willing than ever to listen to offers. Moving the fourth pick, though, would require a significant return. They\u2019d want a player in his prime who can contribute to what they\u2019re building for many years to come.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Everyone involved in the Connor Bedard contract negotiations has been very tight-lipped. Don\u2019t expect a ton of information coming out before the deal is announced. The new contract could be finished in June, but no one seems to be in a rush.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Roman Kantserov\u2019s entry-level contract is loaded with bonuses, just like a high first-round pick would get. He could get as much as $3.5 million in bonuses. He\u2019d have to be among the league\u2019s best players to reach all the bonuses. I\u2019m sure plenty of you remember Artemi Panarin activating those bonuses on his entry-level contract. The Blackhawks wouldn\u2019t have to worry about the salary cap repercussions this time around.<\/p>\n
\u2022 The World Championships haven\u2019t gone as hoped for several Blackhawks players. Aside from Ter\u00e4v\u00e4inen\u2019s injury, Wyatt Kaiser had a rough start to the tournament for the U.S. and hasn\u2019t played much lately. Anton Frondell wasn\u2019t playing early on and then had a minor injury. He\u2019s been back in the lineup. Drew Commesso played a bit for the U.S. Arvid S\u00f6derblom has played in three games for Sweden and has stopped 41 of 46 shots for an .891 save percentage.<\/p>\n
Sam Lafferty and Oliver Moore have been playing the most among the Blackhawks players. For Lafferty, it has to feel good after not playing a ton for the Blackhawks this season. For Moore, this was an opportunity to play some competitive hockey again after sitting out the last month of the NHL season with an injury. He has three assists in seven games. Blackhawks prospect Adam Gajan also played some for Slovakia. That has to be a confidence builder going into his first pro season.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Chris Johnston contributed to this report.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO \u2014 Outside of the draft lottery, May has been a pretty quiet month for the Chicago Blackhawks.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[4824,385,99],"class_list":["post-670914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-chicago-blackhawks","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670914","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=670914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}