Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Options Author
Being an AHL crew means rolling with the punches.
Final Thursday, the Rockford IceHogs misplaced head coach Anders Sorensen to the mother or father Chicago Blackhawks, the place he took over as interim head coach. It’s the third time in somewhat greater than six years that the IceHogs’ bench boss has been promoted to Chicago mid-season, with Sorensen following Jeremy Colliton in 2018 and Derek King in 2021.
In the midst of all of it are the IceHogs, who had been on a six-game street swing and looking for their footing within the AHL’s Central Division. The Hogs had bounced Lehigh Valley, 7-3, on Wednesday evening in what can be Sorensen’s final sport with the membership. They had been making ready to face Hartford and Springfield over the weekend when their management was shaken up by a training change made by one other crew in one other league.
Rockford got here into the season with excessive hopes for a slew of younger Blackhawks prospects, and whereas their 8-10-0-3 file leaves them solely fifth within the Central, these gamers have actually made an impression.
Defenseman Kevin Korchinski, taken seventh general by Chicago within the 2022 NHL Draft, got here to Rockford this fall after spending his total rookie season with the Blackhawks. Chicago wished him within the AHL to get ample enjoying time and to spherical out his sport.
Becoming a member of Korchinski on the IceHogs blue line was the second general choose in final June’s NHL Draft, Artyom Levshunov. Levshunov, who turned 19 on Oct. 28, spent one season at Michigan State College and was one of many high freshman skaters within the nation; the AHL was the proper place to get him much-needed professional expertise.
Ahead Frank Nazar, a 20-year-old coming off an impressive sophomore season on the College of Michigan, went thirteenth general within the 2022 NHL Draft. He at present leads all AHL rookies with 11 targets and 24 factors.
Combine in ahead prospects Colton Dach, Cole Guttman, Gavin Hayes, Samuel Savoie and Landon Slaggert with blueliners Ethan Del Mastro (an AHL All-Star final season as a rookie) and Isaak Phillips, and the IceHogs had an intriguing mix for Chicago’s ongoing rebuilding mission. Captain Brett Seney, NHL veteran Zach Sanford and former AHL MVP Gerry Mayhew present expertise, and 2020 second-rounder Drew Commesso and third-year professional Mitchell Weeks have been manning the crease.
However participant improvement is an unsure sport, particularly within the standings. Rockford obtained off to a 3-7-0-0 begin, an early check for a younger crew’s collective confidence. Since then they’ve earned factors in in eight of 11 video games (5-3-3-0). However the AHL schedule doesn’t wait, and new IceHogs interim head coach Mark Eaton, the Blackhawks’ assistant normal supervisor overseeing participant improvement, took over along with his membership 1,000 miles from residence.
“We’re attempting to maintain it as business-as-usual as potential,” Phillips told broadcaster Dana Grey earlier than Saturday’s sport in Springfield.
Rockford closes its street stretch with a go to to Iowa on Wednesday, the primary of six conferences between the fifth-place IceHogs and sixth-place Wild over a 22-day span. They’re additionally with out Korchinski and Commesso, who had been recalled by the Blackhawks on Sunday. Nonetheless, this case is a chance for everybody, together with Eaton, a 15-year professional defenseman and former AHL All-Star who’s getting his first likelihood to tackle a bench function.
“I’m actually trying ahead to increasing my horizons and my perspective on the sport and studying one thing new,” Eaton told Grey. “Embrace the problem – that’s one of many issues that I view as an expectation for the crew right here, a progress mindset.”
On the American Hockey League beat for 20 years, TheAHL.com options author Patrick Williams additionally at present covers the league for NHL.com and FloSports and is a daily contributor on SiriusXM NHL Community Radio. He was the recipient of the AHL’s James H. Ellery Memorial Award for his excellent protection of the league in 2016.
