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The Chicago Blackhawks officially introduced Nick Foligno as their 35th captain in franchise history on Thursday as training camp opened ahead of the 2024-25 season.
Among those in attendance: Blackhawks chairman and CEO Danny Wirtz, president of business operations Jaime Faulkner, head coach Luke Richardson, alternate captains Seth Jones and Connor Murphy, veteran forward Taylor Hall, and former Blackhawks captains Chris Chelios and Denis Savard.
In the introductory press conference, Foligno said he's honored by wearing the "C" for an Original Six franchise.
"I’m truly grateful to this organization for putting that belief in me," Foligno said. "I don’t take that lightly. I think being an historian of the game myself, I’ve seen what’s come here before me, with Mr. Chelios and Mr. Savard and obviously a great captain in Jonthan Toews and that leadership group. I’m humbled and honored to take this on, this responsibility and grow this to where this fan base and organization expects to go and do this together with this great group of guys."
Foligno said he reached out to Toews — who held the captaincy title from 2008-2023 — but the two of them haven't been able to connect yet.
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"Obviously, I want to talk to him and just have that conversation," Foligno said. "I know what he’s meant to this organization. I’ve said he’s a pillar that this organization stands on with what he’s done. I admire him, because we both got drafted the same year and to see what he was able to accomplish at such a young age and take on the leadership role at such a young age at an Original Six team in a market like this, it's admirable and something as a player from afar, I’d watch and I’d learn and appreciate.
"The one thing I’m going to make clear is that there are no shoes to fill. That’s been done. That’ll never be touched. His legacy will live on for a very long time. But what I’m excited about is a new era, so to speak. It’s about growing this team to that direction and understanding we have a lot of great players coming. There’s an exciting group of players coming, an exciting group of players we have this season I'm really proud to lead, with a handful of guys here and I’m honored to do so. ... I appreciate everything Jonathan’s done and he’s given us a hell of a blueprint in order to do so. Hopefully we’ll get back to the years where he had a lot of success here and hopefully we will too."
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The Blackhawks' two alternate captains weren't surprised to see Foligno tabbed as the guy, considering they've known him for a while.
"He's a natural for sure," Murphy said. "He's done it before and it's just a makeup of his character and personality to be that presence. It's definitely a smooth transition for him to come in and do that so quickly."
"Nick has always been Nick, deep down," Jones said. "When I got to Columbus, I was 21 years old, so I got a firsthand [view] of what he's talking about when the young guy comes into the team and what we were trying to build there, we were kind of at the start but in the middle of our process there.
"But he’s a very personable guy, always asking to go to lunch, always wanting to go to dinner with different guys on the team to establish those connections. He wants everyone to kind of be a tight knit group, so that if you trust each other off the ice, you're going to trust each other on the ice. And so that's kind of the model that we went with there in Columbus, and that's something that we've always talked about here when we got here, and we want to get to that tight knit group again."
Other takeaways from Day 1 of training camp:
- The Blackhawks scrimmaged right out of the gates on Thursday. It sounds like they're doing to do so over the next three practices, and then start honing in on specific things on Tuesday. Sunday is a scheduled off day. "We wanted to get right in.
"We expected the guys to come in in shape," Richardson said. "We talked about it. Nick, internally, talked about it with the guys that were coming here, especially the leaders, they all showed up in great shape, did extra stuff in the training room and the weight room before camp even started on their own. You can just feel it. So I think we just wanted to go with it and get right into a fast pace.
"I loved the pace today. The pace up and down was excellent. We want to use that pace to be up and down the ice, execute now with more veteran players that are able to make these plays at a high-pace NHL level speed. And if we can continue that, we’re going to be a hard team to keep up with." - Let's get to what everyone has been waiting for, shall we? The lines! Should preface this by saying the combos are probably going to change quite a bit throughout training camp because this is the time to experiment with different looks. Alright, now time to dissect:
Connor Bedard skated on a line with Tyler Bertuzzi and Taylor Hall, Philipp Kurashev centered a line with Lukas Reichel and Teuvo Teravainen, Jason Dickinson was on a line with Nick Foligno and Ilya Mikhehev, and Andreas Athanasiou centered a line with Pat Maroon and Craig Smith.
Ryan Donato skated on a line with Joey Anderson and Landon Slaggert, which felt like the "fifth" line. Those three players are probably going to be duking it out for the final two forward spots, and I imagine Anderson and Donato will win out since Slaggert is waivers exempt.
I did find it noteworthy that Frank Nazar was skating on a line with Colton Dach and Nick Lardis. That tells me he's likely going to start the season with the AHL's Rockford IceHogs, which has been my expectation all along.
Here's what Richardson had to say about the line combinations:
"We’re going to rotate those three teams and scrimmages," he said. "We want to have a little balance so that we can see them pushing each other. But you also wanted to see some difference combinations like that. I think we’ll probably continue to do that. We might give it a few days and switch it for Saturday and Monday or just Monday, then get right into it in the exhibition games." - And finally, some injury updates. Marcel Marcel, Alex Pharand and Marek Vanacker all skated on their own before practice. Artyom Levshunov (right foot) and Laurent Brossoit (meniscus) did not skate, as expected.
Richardson on Levshunov: "I know he’s in the gym right now working, at some point graduating to the ice. All I know is the same timeline that was originally released. I just know I see a smiley face in the dressing room every day. He’s a fun guy and loves to be around. He can’t wait to get out there. The trainers will have to wrestle him off until his timeline."
Richardson on Brossoit: "I think he’s on par for what they said. He’s in such great shape. I heard he’s a gym rat. When you have guys who are in top level conditioning and not coming off summer conditioning, he’s one of those guys who’s like that 12 months of the year, I think always helps a guy to get back quicker. Especially his position, it’s a lot of leg loading. I think he’ll be ready for whatever the timeline was."
