One of the many things the Blackhawks have to take care of this offseason is a new contract for

Kevin Kortinski, who is a restricted free agent. But there's a caveat. Kevin Kortinski must clear waivers after signing to return to Rockford. So if he does not make the team out of camp, he must go through waivers before he is able to play in the HL, which begs the question, what do we do with Kevin Kourchinski? We are here recording this in middle of May, and I'm still a little bit on the fence. I'm wondering where your head's at on Kortch right now. Obviously, you give him a new deal. That's no question about that. You keep him around. If I were to, you know, look at where he's at, where the defense is at, and the cap situation with Blackhawks,

they have oodles of money to spend. So it doesn't really matter. It's not going to be a cap-breaking

contract. But if I were them, I would, as much as it feels like this is the year he has to figure

it out, or something's going to happen. I give him two years.

I give him a two year deal.

I don't know, million and a half, two million.

What's it matter?

Like, I give him the opportunity to be in the NHL,

give him the chance to prove it.

And on a deal like that for most other teams, if you do get to the point where you

move him for whatever, that's not breaking any team's bank to try and bring him on if there's

any reason to kind of make that kind of deal. You have to give him the preseason. You have to give

him training camp to earn the spot in the defensive rotation that

right now as it currently stands he sits in because they only have seven defensemen that they

can that they can run with and all of them are 25 or younger i agree i am encouraged by the end of the

season for him i think he played well in that final call up, that final stretch. Now, if you want to go glass half empty or look at it with a little more of a critical eye, you could say there was nothing at stake right then. The Hawks had nothing to play for. The season was over. It was just a matter of finishing off the last handful of games and calling it a day. Right. But I think Kevin Kourtsinski knew that it was going to be an opportunity for him to put

out, to give a little bit of a, not a show, but to prove that the Hawks that he can play at this level.

And they made him the seventh overall pick in 2022. And whether or not they made the right decision to start him in the NHL, we'll argue

that forever.

But it's time for another extended look for him.

He's been a two years in a row, AHL All Star.

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