Chicago Blackhawks Demote Nick Leddy: Reality of Why

October 17th, 2010 by TAB BAMFORD Leave a reply »
On Sunday morning, the Chicago Blackhawks announced that they had demoted top prospect Nick Leddy to Rockford of the AHL.

As I wrote when the move was announced, it doesn’t make much sense within the context of the current Blackhawks roster. Many analysts have already talked about Leddy receiving an opportunity at the NHL level largely because of Brian Campbell's injury during training camp, and he certainly looked like a 19-year-old at times in the first six games of the season.

But for a team that stresses puck possession as much as the Chicago Blackhawks do, if the group of players filling the roster on the blue line is a head-scratcher, it might give you the same hairline as Scotty Bowman.

Duncan Keith is, in every way, an elite puck-moving defenseman. But after him, the team really doesn’t have a reliable option to handle the puck out of the Hawks end. Brent Seabrook is a physical player who can handle the puck, but is usually on the ice with Keith, which takes away from him being an option to carry the puck. Niklas Hjalmarsson has been very average to begin the season (zero points and minus-four).

Beyond the thr ...

Read Full Article at Bleacher Report - NHL
Article written by

Advertisement

Comments are closed.