Blackhawks Make Roster Moves In Wake Of Juhjar Khaira Injury
The good news for the Blackhawks and their fans came early on Wednesday morning. Forward Juhjar Khaira was released from the hospital and sent home to recover. The club did not provide a timeline for him to return to the ice, but did say he should be able to completely recover from the huge hit delivered by Jacob Trouba on Tuesday night.
UPDATE: around 6 PM CT on Wednesday the Blackhawks officially place Khaira in concussion protocol and on injured reserve.
In the wake of the injury, the Hawks made four roster moves. Defensemen Ian Mitchell and Wyatt Kalynuk were sent to Rockford, which clears up some of the questions with the Hawks’ blue line being incredibly crowded. Coming back to Chicago are forwards Mike Hardman and Philipp Kurashev.
The Blackhawks also activated forward MacKenzie Entwistle from IR and assigned him to Rockford.
Mitchell had played much better since being recalled after the coaching change. Kalynuk was still getting his legs under him after returning from IR himself.
Hopefully Khaira has a full recovery and gets back on the ice.
With any luck Entwistle makes his way back and is on more of a rehab stint right now, was one of their bright spots among forward corps this year.
Ditto @Ian
Hopefully Khaira has a full recovery and gets back on the ice.
With any luck Entwistle makes his way back and is on more of a rehab stint right now, was one of their bright spots among forward corps this year.
Agree that hopefully Entwistle is back up soon – he might work well with Borg and Kub
Upon getting a closer look at the Trouba hit it does appear that he caught Khaira’s head first with his shoulder
He’ll likely get a couple of games
I also hope Khaira is able to resume his hockey career
YAWN….wake me up when the hawks have real nhl players coming from the ahl.
Anyone that thinks these moves will help ” WRONG AGAIN ” #23 & #86 have done nothing & will continue to.
far away & goose
other than reichel rockford appears to have future fourth line forwards and third pairing defensemen.
Prospect watch- (just a few)
Colton Dach has 11 goals and 7 assists in 19 WHL games so far.
Drew Commesso has a 2.82 ga and 900 save % in 15 games @ Boston U
Landon Slaggert 5 g and 5 a at ND
Antti Saarela 8 g, 6 a in 23 games in Finland.
Hopefully a full and speedy recovery for Khaira. I don’t think Trouba’s hit was “dirty” but after watching several times it sure looks like he made contact with chin/jaw. Hard to tell for certain from the angle I’ve seen.
Don’t look now but the vaunted big bad Rangers are currently catching a beating at Madison Square Garden 6 to 2 at the end of 2 periods by the Avalanche. Maybe the Hawks wore them out.
Trouba took MacKinnon out with another border line hit on a player he saw not seeing him coming, the coward needs somebody to teach him some respect, he does it alot.
Excellent point Ian. The NHL ‘s decision to sanction the vicious hit from last night as completely legal and acceptable provides a license for Trouba and players like him to continue to do so. Until someone dies. That’s what it will take for things to change.
Agree he is a coward.
Ian,Iceman. Absolutely spot on about Trouba and the repricussions of letting hits to the head be unpunished. Given the last 2 nights I believe some ugliness is coming. Both Trouba hits were cowardly and cheap. The NHL should have addressed it and now it’s too late. Stay tuned for Tuesday night when the Rangers visit the Avalanche. Of course it is a blacked out game on ESPN Plus exclusively.
Del Mastro and Crevier- are the 2 Hawks D men prospects to watch… 3rd would be Kaiser.
All will have good shot as regular NHL ers in next couple of years
Forwards- Reichel and Saarela- about it
Yes he Trouba looks for or anticipates those blind hits. He did stand up to Landeskog and fight. Not like the coward Orpik who liked to hit like that also and said he doesn’t fight. The way Trouba will stop is when someone does it to him. It will happen, trust me.
Can we agree that we definitely have to have a true enforcer on the team. Even if you have a John Scott the other team knows he only gets 6 shifts a night but he’s there if someone gets out of line. So they do think about what hits they give out and who they answer too. Toronto didn’t get Clifford to set up Mathews Marner Nylander Tavares etc. They got him to protect them. Even having Simmons they got him and skate both of them.
Panarin is getting that bullseye firmly planted on his chin. As small as he is, every hit will be a head shot. He should SPLAT real nicely.
Might be time for Artemi to have a talk with Mr. Trouba.
Trouba lays out two different players who were skating with their heads down. No penalties were called on either hit.
Boarder line dirty, boarder line clean. How about keeping your head up since hockey is a contact sport.
Why not just take hitting out of the game completely?
In both cases Trouba had to fight someone after he laid out the big hit and in both cases Trouba stood up for himself. Any way you look at it the so called coward proved he is not afraid to throw a big hit or throw a big punch.
JR, You are right about enforcers. Eventually when you obtain enough assets to make a run,you have to have them protected. The Avalanche went out and added MacDermid in the off-season and raved about having him tonight even though Landeskog predictably stepped up after the hit. Later on MacDermid went after Trouba and received a 10 minute misconduct penalty . The Hawks have been missing heavy players for a long time.
Tim W: I also watched that game. Rangers were chippy the whole game leading up to the Trouba hit. Avs were taking and giving back. After Landeskog got in Trouba’s ear the Rangers laid off and then they got buried by the Avs. Even the Rangers analyst said “that maybe Panarin should say something to Trouba or else something could happen to him(something to that effect)
JR: I’ve been saying that about an enforcer since I got here. We don’t have to turn back into Keenan’s Blackhawks but somebody here would send a message for teams to stop taking runs at our players.
From Okie’s stats above for our prospects, we can tell which Dach passed the puck to which Dach.
Stape its not hitting that needs addressed, intentionally trying to run players who you know don’t see you coming is a cowardly way of trying deliver a big check. When i played anyways it was. Hitting is part of the game, trying to deliver hits with a sucker punch type mentality doesn’t need to be. If they result in causing head injuries then player safety needs to step up.
You know things are trending in the wrong direction league wise when the NFL is doing a better job protecting players from head hits than the NHL is. Tochet made some good points on TNT last night as he actually came down on the side of both hits not being in accordance with current NHL rules. His main point was that a player must play the puck before the body in those puck at the feet situations. Ian, I am with you back from my playing days,when dinosaurs roamed the earth,that we never ran guys in those puck at the feet and a guy couldn’t see you situations. We actually used to yell towards guys before hitting them and would never target above the shoulders.
Strome scratched tonight, Dach on a line with Kurashev and Kubalik. Sounds like Toews still with Kane for now, wonder if Hagel or Cat with them.
MAF starting, McCabe and Murphy back in, C. Jones a game time decision, maybe Stillman out if he is in.
Rutherford going to Canucks.
Ian, Saw that. It took the Canucks an entire week to assemble their Management team with a Head Coach. Rocky and Danny are wokefully collaborating I guess. The Canuxks also have the Sedins and 3 others involved in making decisions. Lots of hockey people out there in Vancouver. Watched them play their last 2 games. They look like an entirely different team already.
Looks like Rutherford may be in the Team Presidents role. They still expect to make another big front office hire. The 12 step program in progress there. They acknowledged they had a team culture problem and are not very quickly doing something about it.
I meant “Now”
Hawks trade chad Krys to Toronto for kurtis Gabriel
Enforcer type
Rutherford a go for it now guy, unlikely the Canucks hit the rebuild mode, maybe this year to reload at most. Expect him to be busy between now and next season making roster changes. Looking for a GM he can mentor, plus handle the duties.