Sunday was an important day for the Chicago Blackhawks, with two more former first-round picks making their NHL debuts in the United Center. Oliver Moore and Sam Rinzel signed their entry-level contracts with the organization on Saturday after their collegiate seasons at the University of Minnesota came to a crushing end in the NCAA tournament on Thursday.
The pair made their NHL debuts against Utah at home in the team’s 5-2 loss on Sunday. Rinzel was on the ice for 20:15, the second most time logged among Chicago defensemen. Moore put in just over 15 minutes and showed off his speed, which will translate well with how this team wants to operate moving forward.
The big question surrounding Moore and Rinzel is whether they’ll make the team out of camp this summer or begin next season with Rockford. This team will be certainly be harder to make this year compared to previous seasons, but an NHL insider believes that one of the two former Golden Gophers will never play an AHL game in his career.
Chicago Blackhawks Insider believes Sam Rinzel won’t go to AHL
NHL insider Frank Seravalli was straightforward when giving his thoughts on where Sam Rinzel stands entering next season.
“Sam Rinzel will not play a single game in the AHL,” Seravalli said. He projects to be a top pair NHL defenseman.”
For those who watched the entire game on Sunday, it was clear to see that Rinzel was one of the best, if not the best, defenseman that Chicago brought to the table. Many believe that Rinzel looks more polished than 2024 second overall pick Artyom Levshunov. This would make sense, as Rinzel is older than Levshunov and played an extra year of college hockey. However, the point is still an important one to monitor as it’s been assumed for the last year that Levshunov was the obvious number one right-shot defenseman of the future in Chicago.
Rinzel also mentioned that he learned plenty of things in his debut that came along with getting a couple of solid scoring chances.
“Learned a lot of things today,” Rinzel said. “Scoring is hard — that was one of them.”
The offensive game will be something to keep an eye on for Rinzel. He saw an uptick in his goal scoring this past season at Minnesota, as he found the back of the net 10 times and had 22 assists.
The Chicago Blackhawks’ defensive future looks extremely bright
The Chicago Blackhawks front office might have a good problem on their hands with the number of successful young blue-liners they have in their organization. Half of their future core is already locked in with Levshunov, Rinzel, and Alex Vlasic on the roster. Kevin Korchinski is another former first-round talent who is up with the team to finish off the season but will still have to prove over the summer that he can be a top-four defenseman with these three.
Ethan Del Mastro has played himself into the conversation of sticking around for the next few seasons, thanks to his play since February. He is just 22 years old and has developed his game nicely this season to a point where he stopped being shuttled back and forth between Rockford and the NHL. The 2021 first-round draft choice Nolan Allan might be the odd man out of the youth movement, as he has been down at the AHL level for over a month now.
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