The Blackhawks have signed left wing prospect Marek Vanacker to his three-year, entry-level contract, per a team release. It carries the maximum ELC cap hit of $975K.
Vanacker, 18, was the 27th overall pick in June’s draft. Chicago acquired the selection from the Hurricanes on draft day, sending the No. 34 (Dominik Badinka) and No. 50 (Nikita Artamonov) picks the other way. He spent his draft year with the Brantford Bulldogs of the Ontario Hockey League.
Vanacker broke out as a star in Brantford last season, leading the team in scoring by a wide margin with 36 goals, 46 assists and 82 points in 68 games. The teammate of Blackhawks 2023 third-round pick Nick Lardis had just four goals in 55 games for the Bulldogs the year prior.
The strong-skating playmaker is an unlikely candidate for an NHL roster spot in the fall, though. He’ll attend training camp with the Blackhawks but will be returned to Brantford to play out the 2024-25 season. That will slide the beginning of his entry-level contract to the 2025-26 season, making him an RFA upon expiry in 2028. Vanacker is young enough that he’s eligible for an entry-level slide twice, so if he plays fewer than 10 NHL games in 2025-26, the contract may not begin until 2026-27, thus expiring as late as 2029.
Vanacker was the last of three first-round picks that Chicago made this year, joining second-overall selection Artyom Levshunov and No. 18 pick Sacha Boisvert. The former will be turning pro in the fall, while Boisvert remains unsigned ahead of his freshman season at North Dakota.
Since the Hawks obviously scouted Lardis hard this kid must have also caught their eye. Especially since they traded 2 2nd rounders to move up and get him. Must have liked something about him.
I expect the Hawks to be hanging around .500 this year barring the slew of injuries they got murdered with last year. They also have some pieces they might be able to trade. Hall has a modified NTC and a 6 million dollar salary but the Hawks can still afford to eat some Anathesiou, Martinez, Donato, Smith and Maroon are all in the UFA mode after this year. They’re in a pretty good spot right now with really only 1 questionable salary I see in Brodie. And that’s not even all that bad. A couple of nifty trades, A spot of health this year and things should be looking up. Maybe they can even go big game hunting next off season.
There may be just 1 questionable salary on the books – but there is also one truly awful one. I know we would all love to forget the Seth Jones deal, but it won’t go away just because we wish it would.
Yeah that ones never going away though. I forgot that one but I don’t really count it because it’s Bowman’s folly that we’re all stuck with and can’t be moved.