Central Notes: Blackhawks, Jets, Hinote

The Blackhawks were one of the league’s more active teams in free agency at the beginning of this month, adding a decent slate of veteran talent to avoid overworking their prospects as they slowly begin to exit their rebuild stage. Expect two of those additions to flank Connor Bedard on the Hawks’ first line come opening night, writes The Athletic’s Mark Lazerus. Lazerus projects Tyler Bertuzzi and Teuvo Teravainen to serve as Bedard’s wingers to begin 2024-25 after they each inked multi-year deals to come to Chicago.

Taylor Hall, who was acquired last summer to fill the “Bedard mentor” role but played only 10 games, will likely get second-line reps as he makes his return from knee surgery, Lazerus posits. One youngster noticeably absent from Lazerus’ lineup projection is 2022 13th overall pick Frank Nazar, who could fall victim to a numbers game and start this season on assignment to AHL Rockford. Unlike Lukas Reichel, Chicago’s 2020 first-round selection, Nazar doesn’t require waivers. The Hawks may prefer Reichel to start the season in the minors after struggling with just 16 points (5 G, 11 A) in 65 games in 2023-24, but doing so would risk exposing him to the league’s other 31 teams on the wire. Thus, Nazar will likely be headed to the AHL with roster spots needed for other veteran additions such as Pat Maroon, Ilya Mikheyev and Craig Smith.

Another player who could start the campaign in Rockford, this time for pure development reasons, is defenseman Kevin Korchinski. Chicago’s lack of depth on defense last season likely forced Korchinski into more NHL minutes than the team would have liked. With T.J. Brodie and Alec Martinez signed in free agency to provide depth and older prospects like Wyatt Kaiser and Isaak Phillips on the cusp of NHL minutes, the organization “wouldn’t mind another year’s worth of patience for any of his young defensemen, Korchinski (and Kaiser) included,” says Lazerus.

There’s more from the Central:

• After getting bounced by the Avalanche in the first round last year, the Jets enter 2024-25 with a new-look coaching staff. Scott Arniel has stepped into the big-boss chair to replace the retired Rick Bowness, while Dean Chynoweth and Davis Payne were brought in as external hires to fill a pair of assistant vacancies. To that end, Arniel is hosting a “summer coaching summit” to acclimate his new staff, report Mike McIntyre and Ken Wiebe of The Winnipeg Free Press. One focus under Arniel will be implementing more advanced stats into the Jets’ coaching strategy. “So, what we’re trying to do is funnel [statistics] to our coaching staff, so we can determine, ‘OK, what is it that we want? What do you guys want, what do you guys (in the analytics department) have?,” he told McIntyre and Wiebe.
• On Nashville Scene’s “It’s All Your Fault” podcast Monday, Dan Hinote spoke about why he parted ways with the Predators this offseason, leaving his assistant coach role there to take an AHL role in the Avalanche organization as the associate head coach of the Colorado Eagles. The 47-year-old, who played 353 games for the Avs between 1999 and 2006, said he prefers working in more of a development-oriented environment, something Nashville is shifting away from after adding a trio of high-profile veteran UFAs. “The thing about what I realize is that the part of the game that I love coaching the most is the development side,” Hinote said. “I had 10 years to not perfect it, but work on it. I’ve gotten there. I feel like I have a good recipe, I’ve had good results for a lot of guys that were kind of up and down and have now kind of solidified themselves as NHL’ers through this process, so I know it works. That’s kind of what it came to” (hat tip to Colorado Hockey Now’s Evan Rawal).