Laurent Brossoit

Blackhawks goaltender Laurent Brossoit was on the ice today ahead of practice for the first time in well over a year, Ben Pope of the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

Brossoit has not played since April 28, 2024, when the former Jets netminder entered Winnipeg’s loss in Game 4 of the first round against the Avalanche in relief of Connor Hellebuyck. He hit unrestricted free agency the following offseason and signed a two-year, $6.6MM contract with Chicago, but he’s yet to even practice with the club – until today.

He’s spent the last 12 months mired in injuries. It started with a meniscus surgery in late August 2024 before he reported to his first training camp in Chicago. That was only supposed to keep him out for around two months, but his return kept getting pushed back until he was downgraded to being out indefinitely in November. He had a second procedure on his knee around Thanksgiving that was supposed to put him back in the lineup in mid-January, but after radio silence until the trade deadline, he was shut down for the year. Brossoit underwent a third surgery this past summer – on his hip, not his knee – and general manager Kyle Davidson said at the beginning of camp that he remained out long-term.

That made most believe he’d essentially spend the balance of his two-year deal on injured reserve and never actually appear on Chicago’s roster before reaching free agency again next summer. He’s still likely weeks, if not months, away from a return, considering how much time he’s missed, but the fact that he’s on the ice this early in the campaign gives him a fighting chance at returning to play at some point.

Before signing with the Blackhawks, Brossoit had put up back-to-back career years. A lifelong backup, he’d posted a .927 SV% and 2.00 GAA with three shutouts in a career-high 22 starts for Winnipeg in 2024-25. The year prior, injuries limited Brossoit to 11 regular-season appearances for the Golden Knights, but he was similarly efficient, posting a 7-0-3 record and a .927 SV% with a 2.17 GAA. On a per-60-minute basis, Brossoit ranked sixth in the league in goals saved above expected in 2022-23 and fifth in 2023-24 among goalies with at least 10 games played, according to MoneyPuck.

That had the Hawks high on him as a veteran option to provide insurance for Petr Mrázek, whose workload they wanted to decrease after he started in a career-high 53 games in 2023-24. Since then, Chicago’s crease has undergone a drastic transformation. After Mrázek put together a strong .907 SV% in 2023-24, he dipped to a .890 SV% and 3.46 GAA in 33 appearances for the Hawks last year and was shipped off to the Red Wings at the deadline.

Now, Chicago’s crease is locked in with two young names. There’s 2019 first-rounder Spencer Knight, acquired from the Panthers last season in the Seth Jones deal, who’s arguably been the best goalie in the league this season with a .924 SV%, 2.42 GAA, and 14.7 goals saved above expected in 13 starts. His backup is 26-year-old Arvid Söderblom, whose emergence as an above-average backup option last year made Mrázek expendable. He hasn’t gotten much playing time this year behind Knight, but in five starts, he’s been more than passable with a 2-2-1 record, .913 SV%, and 2.63 GAA.

That doesn’t leave a clear spot for Brossoit on the NHL roster if he’s to return. With Knight shouldering such a high percentage of the workload, a three-goalie rotation isn’t feasible. He’ll likely land on waivers if he’s cleared to play and assigned to AHL Rockford. Since he’s had so much time away, it’s hard to see a team trading for him – or signing him in free agency next summer – before they see him get into sustained action at the minor-league level.

Sep. 18: Brossoit’s continued absence isn’t related to his knee injury after all. The goaltender underwent yet another surgery during the offseason, this time on his hip, which will continue to leave him out long-term, according to Ben Pope of the Chicago Sun-Times.

Sep. 16: Blackhawks goaltender Laurent Brossoit will not participate in training camp as he continues to deal with a right knee injury that already cost him the entire 2024-25 season, the team said when announcing their training camp roster today. Ben Pope of the Chicago Sun-Times relays that Brossoit’s absence will be “likely a lot longer than [camp].”

A second missed season would result in Brossoit never playing a game for the Hawks after landing a two-year, $6.6MM commitment from them in free agency last summer. He was initially brought in to challenge veteran Petr Mrázek for the starters’ crease or, at the very least, provide veteran insurance in case the younger Arvid Söderblom continued to falter after an underwhelming showing in 2023-24. While a career backup option, Brossoit was coming off an excellent showing behind Connor Hellebuyck in Winnipeg with a .927 SV% and 2.00 GAA in a career-high 22 starts and capitalized on a weak goaltending market as a UFA.

Then, the injury hit. Brossoit underwent meniscus surgery in late August 2024 and was only initially expected to miss five to seven weeks, eating into his training camp but putting him on track to be available for the beginning of the regular season. The team was still optimistic about his return timeline as the season opener came and went. The team then abruptly downgraded him from day-to-day to indefinite in November. He had a second surgery that was supposed to have him on track to make his season debut in January or February, but the team ended up shutting him down for the season at the trade deadline.

The team was noncommittal about Brossoit’s availability for camp even at the beginning of the offseason, expressing hopefulness but not going so far as to make any official declarations on his status. They kicked the can even further down the road today.

Even if he was healthy, Brossoit would be something of an afterthought in Chicago by now. Söderblom established himself as a legitimate NHL option last season, making 36 appearances and logging a respectable .898 SV% and 3.18 GAA to represent massive upgrades from his prior-year performance. The club then picked up 2019 first-rounder Spencer Knight from the Panthers before the trade deadline as the main piece of the return for defenseman Seth Jones. He enters camp as the undisputed starter and recently put pen to paper on a three-year, $17.5MM extension.

Cap space is of no concern for the Blackhawks, who are closer to the floor than the limit. They’ll have no issue leaving Brossoit’s $3.3MM cap hit on injured reserve for the balance of the 2025-26 campaign if he can’t stage a comeback.

Brossoit’s absence means that offseason free agent signing Stanislav Berezhnoy, a 22-year-old out of Russia, should be the other half of their tandem with Drew Commesso in AHL Rockford. If Brossoit was healthy and ended up heading to the minors, Berezhnoy might have been pushed to an ECHL role to get him playing time to start the year.

The Blackhawks expected veteran Laurent Brossoit to serve as their No. 2 option between the pipes after they signed him to a two-year, $6.6MM deal over the summer, but he’s instead spent the entire season on injured reserve after two surgeries on the meniscus in his right knee. General manager Kyle Davidson tells Ben Pope of the Chicago Sun-Times that he’s “hopeful” but unsure if Brossoit will play at all in 2024-25.

“If he does come back this year, we’re very confident [goaltending coach Jimmy Waite] will be able to manage that dynamic, which is not traditional, but it’s the situation we’d be in if he’d return,” Davidson said (via Charlie Roumeliotis of WGN Radio 720). “I think we’ll be fine working through that if we end up with three goaltenders on the NHL roster.”

Brossoit, 31, has been a career backup and was quite inconsistent from year to year in limited action during his first few NHL seasons in Edmonton and Winnipeg. While that small workload has never changed, he was among the NHL’s save percentage leaders since returning from injury with Vegas in the 2022-23 campaign. He logged a .927 mark in limited action with the Knights to end the regular season and carried that strong play into a return to Winnipeg in the summer of 2023, replicating his SV% in a career-high 22 starts behind Connor Hellebuyck.

That led to rightful optimism that he could handle an increased workload, but he hasn’t gotten the chance to prove it. He and former Panthers backup Anthony Stolarz were in very similar situations entering the summer, coming off runs of elite play in small samples. Both have dealt with injuries this year, but Stolarz has at least gotten a chance to play and solidified his status as an elite tandem option with the Maple Leafs. He’s close to a return after missing six weeks with knee issues.

After his late-August surgery, Brossoit was initially expected to join Chicago’s roster around the start of the regular season. However, his return was delayed, and his status was continually downgraded until he underwent a second procedure in late November. He’s again blown past his projected return window, as the second procedure had a six-week timeline and should have had him back in the lineup earlier this month.

His absence hasn’t affected the Blackhawks’ record too much. 25-year-old Arvid Söderblom was nearly unplayable as Petr Mrázek’s backup last season but has rebounded in a big way in 2024-25, posting a .906 SV% and 2.97 GAA in 19 starts and two relief appearances. He’s stopped 3.3 goals above expected, per MoneyPuck, playing far more efficiently than Mrázek and his -9.7 figure.

Söderblom would need to go on waivers to head down to the minors, prompting Davidson’s comment that they’d carry three goalies the rest of the way if Brossoit returned. He’d steal more starts from Mrázek, who has a .895 SV% in 29 appearances, than Söderblom anyway.