{"id":807796,"date":"2026-08-09T10:08:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T10:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/807796\/"},"modified":"2026-08-09T10:08:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T10:08:08","slug":"gajan-hopes-to-build-on-olympic-experience-for-blackhawks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/807796\/","title":{"rendered":"Gajan hopes to build on Olympic experience for Blackhawks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Indeed, there are benefits in practicing against Slovakian teammates in the NHL, including forwards Juraj Slafkovsky<\/a>\u00a0of the Montreal Canadiens, Martin Pospisil<\/a>\u00a0of the Calgary Flames and defensemen Martin Fehervary<\/a> of the Washington Capitals, Simon Nemec<\/a> of the Flames and Erik Cernak<\/a>\u00a0of the Tampa Bay Lightning.<\/p>\n

Gajan will try to reap the benefits of that experience at training camp in September. He would like to end up in Rockford, the Blackhawks’ American Hockey League affiliate; he played one game with Rockford last season, making 36 saves in a 4-2 loss to Chicago, the Carolina Hurricanes’ AHL affiliate, on April 12.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of really nice tools there,” Rockford goaltending coach Matt Smith said. “He\u2019s an excellent skater and he\u2019s pretty athletic, so for me, those are two tools that can really project nicely at the NHL level. So for him, the first year, the biggest thing is about learning and trying to grow each day, as cliche as that sounds. That\u2019s the biggest thing and making sure he\u2019s maturing as a pro, and we\u2019ll see where it goes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gajan was selected to the Slovakia Olympic team after his strong second season at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. After going 7-12-1 with a 3.33 goals-against average, .885 save percentage and one shutout in 21 games in 2024-25, Gajan improved to 19-13-1 with a 2.25 GAA, .908 save percentage and two shutouts in 33 games last season.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, it\u2019s an honor for him to be one of the players and goaltenders from his home country,” Minnesota-Duluth goaltending coach Brant Nicklin said. “It was a goal of his and anytime you work toward and certainly based on Year 1, it wasn\u2019t a guarantee that would be the case. With his play and work he earned that opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Indeed, there are benefits in practicing against Slovakian teammates in the NHL, including forwards Juraj Slafkovsky\u00a0of the Montreal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":807797,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-807796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807796","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=807796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/807797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=807796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=807796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=807796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}