It doesn’t take a lot of looking to realize the Chicago Blackhawks have a goaltending problem.
After trading Marc-Andre Fleury to the Minnesota Wild at the deadline the situation has only gotten worse, as Kevin Lankinen and Collin Delia have left something to be desired in-between the pipes. The Blackhawks sit in the bottom ten in the NHL in both goals against average and save percentage, numbers which have only gotten worse since the departure of Fleury. With the two current netminders sitting at 26 and 27 years old respectively, it isn’t looking like they are going to be vastly improving anytime soon.
Despite this, the future of Blackhawks goaltending does look pretty bright. That future is Drew Commesso.
Drafted in the Second round of the 2020 draft, Commesso impressed early with his play in the US National Development Program. A few months later Commesso found himself starting as a freshman for Boston University, putting up a .914 save percentage in 11 games his freshman year. He followed that up with a .915 save percentage through 28 games this past season.
Those numbers are very respectable, especially for guy who hasn’t turned twenty yet, but even more impressive are his numbers from the Olympics. In two games played, Commesso registered a 1.00 GAA, .964 save percentage, and 2 wins. Though a small sample size, those are some ridiculous stat-lines on one of the world’s largest sporting-stages.
Did I mention this guy is only 19? Pretty unreal if you ask me.
Unfortunately, due to the cancellation of the most recent World Juniors, we were robbed of an opportunity to see Commesso perform against the best his age group has to offer, besides the single game he played taking a victory over Slovakia 3-2. Lucky for us, however, we will have another chance to see Commesso compete when the 2022 World Juniors begin again in August.
am very excited to see more of what this kid can bring to your Blackhawks in the hopefully not-so-distant future. You should be too.
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1 Comment
Dale Tallon is the man responsible for the Hawks 3 cup run💯 The core players are the strength of a NHL team!
The bottom 6 can help a team win & are very important to winning. Tallon filled the bill with 20+ players & Crawford in
goal. Bowman’s choice of talent & some real bonehead contacts has put The Hawks in a rebuild mode. With Fluery
In net – The Hawks were a few players away. Goalie is #1💯