It’s only a couple of weeks until the Blackhawks drop the first puck of the season. However, all those off-season moves will have a larger effect on Chicago’s AHL affiliate, the Rockford IceHogs. With the re-tooling of the rebuild, Rockford will probably end up with a strong team.
Normally, a good AHL team implies that the NHL counterpart is relatively weak. The theory is that the longer an NHL team is mediocre, the larger the pool of high-end talent available to them because of good positions. Over the last few years, the Chicago Blackhawks haven’t been the best team but managed to acquire some potentially very talented young players.