Blackhawks’ 2024-25 schedule begins with first-ever trip to Utah

The Blackhawks will be the first NHL team ever to occupy the visitors’ bench at Delta Center in Salt Lake City — the home of the new Utah Hockey Club.

The Hawks’ 2024-25 regular-season schedule, announced Tuesday, begins with a trip to face Utah on Oct. 8 on opening night. The other two games scheduled for that Tuesday involve the defending-champion Panthers hosting the Bruins as well as the Kraken hosting the Blues.

From there, the Hawks will play three more road games — visiting the Jets, Oilers and Flames — before returning to Chicago for their home opener Oct. 17 against the Sharks. That should feature a matchup between the last two No. 1 overall picks, Connor Bedard and Macklin Celebrini. That also starts a four-game homestand with successive visits by the Sabres, Canucks and Predators.

The schedule overall features 21 home games on weekend dates (Friday, Saturday or Sunday), down from 25 last year but still a decent number. Seven of those are scheduled to be matinees.

The Winter Classic against the Blues on New Year’s Eve is part of a five-game homestand, but the Hawks evidently had to give up their annual Black Friday game in exchange — they’re instead visiting the Wild the day after Thanksgiving.

Patrick Kane and the Red Wings come to town on Nov. 6, and the defending champion Panthers come to town on Nov. 21. In mid-February, there’s a two-week break for the new Four Nations Faceoff (in lieu of an All-Star Game).

The Hawks’ home finale will take place April 12 against the Jets before the team finishes the season on a two-game road trip to Montreal and Ottawa.

Before all of that begins, meanwhile, the Hawks have a six-game preseason from Sept. 25 to Oct. 5, facing the Blues, Wings and Wild twice each — including the preseason finale against the Blues in Milwaukee.

Send to Soderblom

Young goalie Arvid Soderblom finds himself squarely out of the NHL roster conversation after the Hawks’ signing of Laurent Brossoit to a two-year contract with a $3.3 million salary-cap hit. Brossoit and Petr Mrazek, whose two-year extension with a $4.25 million cap hit is just kicking in, will clearly be the NHL tandem next season.

Soderblom had to realize the Hawks would at least bring in someone else to compete for the backup considering how poorly he fared in that role last season — going 5-22-2 with an .879 save percentage that ranked 64th out of 65 goalies league-wide — but this represents an outright demotion back to Rockford.

Coach Luke Richardson did his best Monday to explain what the message to the 24-year-old Swede will be.

“When goals start going in on the backdoor and stuff, it takes away the confidence of the goalie,” Richardson said. “He’s not trusting [the defense], and it got him right off his game. And he couldn’t work on his game at the NHL level. Teams go right after him. So it’s going to allow him to work on his game, build it back up to where it was.

“He’s got that ability, but not when his mind and confidence aren’t right. So I think once we get all that established on who we have and where everybody’s going to situate in the organization, we’ll have those conversations about setting goals.”

Pain tolerance

There were some hints last season that Richardson was privately, quietly annoyed about some Hawks players sitting out due to injuries that he believed they should be able to play through.

When discussing the signings of veterans like Pat Maroon and Alec Martinez on Monday, he more directly and explicitly confirmed that sentiment.

“[This will] give us a chance to have guys that have gone through injuries [teach] guys that have never gone through big injuries how you come back — and how you have to play a little bit through some pain and you’re not going to hurt yourself even more,” Richardson said. “It’s hard to do. The first time you think you’re hurt, you’re just saying, ‘I’m hurt.’ I think there’s different levels of that.

“To get guys that have gone through long Stanley Cup playoff runs, everybody is hurt at that point. [They’ll help us] learn what you can do or what you can’t do. When you’re going to hurt the team by playing through this injury, [you need to] take some time off. Or is it just going to be there and I have to learn how to play with pain? There’s going to be a lot of valuable information coming from the guys coming in with that.”