Central Notes: Korchinski, Bjugstad, Kalynuk

The Chicago Blackhawks have gotten quality contributions from several young defensemen this season, but the name they haven’t heard from at the NHL level thus far in 2025-26 has been that of Kevin Korchinski. The 2022 No. 7 overall pick played in just 16 NHL games last season and has spent all of this year so far with the AHL’s Rockford Ice Hogs. While Korchinski has played well in Rockford, and has 10 assists in 15 games so far this season, his path back to the NHL in the short term, without an unforeseen injury to an NHL blueliner, looks increasingly cloudy. The Athletic’s Scott Powers wrote on Thursday that while Korchinski is “still a major part of the Blackhawks’ plans,” the emergence of Matt Grzelcyk as a quality NHL option has made it so the path for Korchinski to steal an NHL role has narrowed.

The Blackhawks’ unexpectedly strong start to 2025-26 has also complicated Korchinski’s path to an NHL call-up, according to Powers. While Chicago surrendered nine goals in a loss to the Buffalo Sabres last night, their form in that game is not indicative of how they’ve played for most of the year. Chicago has a 10-7-3 record, with a 5-3-2 record in their last ten games. They’ve positioned themselves firmly in the race for a playoff spot in this early portion of the season. While the team’s focus is still very much towards a future window of real Stanley Cup contention, an NHL team with a chance to make the playoffs is going to do everything in its power to try to reach the postseason, even teams that self-assume the tag (or are assigned the tag by the media) of a “rebuilding team.” Therefore, as s a result of Chicago’s increased focus on short-term results thanks to their success so far this year, Korchinski’s odds of quickly returning to the NHL appear to have decreased.

Other notes from the NHL’s Central Division:

• One team that hasn’t gotten off to a strong start in 2025-26 are the St. Louis Blues, who have begun the year with just six wins out of 21 games played. While the root cause of their struggles is larger than any one player, some players have gotten off to notably slower starts than others. One player who has struggled recently is veteran Nick Bjugstad, who has been a healthy scratch of late. The Blues signed Bjugstad to a two-year, $1.75MM AAV deal this past summer in part to help stabilize their bottom-six, but that hasn’t happened, with Blues head coach Jim Montgomery telling The Athletic’s Jeremy Rutherford that the veteran is “just not having the same impact he was having” earlier in the year. While Montgomery did note that Bjugstad has “done a lot of good things” defensively, he noted that his all-around impact has slowed down. As recently as 2023-24, Bjugstad scored 22 goals and 45 points. The Blues don’t need that much production from Bjugstad, but they’ll definitely need his play to improve (along with getting similar improvements from numerous other players) if they’re to have any hope of turning around their season and returning to true playoff contention.
• Former Blackhawks blueliner Wyatt Kalynuk was traded in the KHL yesterday, according to an official release from the league. The 28-year-old was a solid three-year NCAA player with the University of Wisconsin who left school early to begin his pro career in Chicago, getting into 21 NHL games in his rookie professional season in 2020-21. At that point, Kalynuk looked like a potential future NHL player, but his game didn’t take any expected steps forward. He got into only five NHL games in 2021-22, and ultimately left the Blackhawks organization to sign with the Vancouver Canucks. In stints with Vancouver and later the New York Rangers and St. Louis Blues, Kalynuk was unable to find a way back to an NHL roster, and after going two full seasons without an NHL game, he decided to leave the North American pro game and sign in the Finnish Liiga. His strong play in his first year in Finland (33 points in 59 games) earned Kalynuk a deal in the KHL with Ak-Bars Kazan, but he was traded to Ufa Salavat Yulayev after just two games. Now, he’s been traded a second time in 2025-26, this time landing with Gerard Gallant’s Shanghai Dragons. Gallant was the coach of the Rangers in 2022-23 when Kalynuk was in the organization, playing in 15 regular-season games, and nine playoff games for the AHL’s Hartford Wolf Pack.