Blackhawks Place Projected Starting Defenseman On Waivers In Risky, Unexpected Move

After recalling a handful of players to play in Saturday’s preseason contest in Milwaukee, the Blackhawks’ front office did some basic housekeeping, assigning forwards Frank Nazar, Colton Dach, Landon Slaggert, Samuel Savoie and Zach Sanford, defensemen Kevin Korchinski, Ethan Del Mastro and Louis Crevier and goaltender Drew Commesso to the IceHogs. They also released Brandon Baddock and Austin Strand from their PTOs and sent them to Rockford. Those moves got them to a seemingly final 23-man roster that they would take into opening night on Tuesday.

But then, the Blackhawks added another name to the list. The team announced it was placing defenseman Isaak Phillips on waivers, which will run Monday. The move was initially a puzzling one, with the potential for the Blackhawks to lose an NHL talent with plenty of potential.

Chicago can keep Phillips on the NHL roster if he clears waivers on Monday, and he could stay with Chicago for up to 30 days before having to go through waivers again. That would likely be the route the Blackhawks take – he could stay on the team until Wyatt Kaiser is healthy enough to return to the lineup.

The move is certainly a risky one. Now 23 years old, the Blackhawks didn’t invest a ton into Phillips, drafting him in the fifth round in 2020. Since then, the young defenseman has blossomed into a solid player who, some might argue, is an NHL-caliber skater. He played in 33 games with the Blackhawks last season and is coming off a great preseason. Why would Chicago throw him onto waivers and run the risk of losing him for nothing?

There’s actually a less obvious agenda – the Blackhawks could be trying to sneak him through. Sure, the team could wait a few weeks until Kaiser is ready to return, then get the attention of every GM in the league by waiving him down the road. Instead, they’re putting him through now, on the day where rosters need to become cap compliant. Today, Phillips became one of 60 players on waivers. That isn’t to say front offices don’t do their due diligence on every player, but their attention span is certainly more divided now than it would be in a few weeks. Perhaps other teams won’t give him enough thought to make a move, considering they would have to put him on their NHL roster.

There’s also a chance Phillips is being waived to make room for a waiver claim of their own. They did so with Jarred Tinordi two years ago. However, that likely wouldn’t be the case, because Phillips is probably one of the best players on waivers this time around. Plus, he did everything right in training camp, knows Chicago’s system, and projects as a decent NHLer. If that was the case, I would much rather them waive someone like Andreas Athanasiou, who was dreadful again in camp and no longer has a place on this roster.

Regardless of what happens to Phillips Monday, this news means that Nolan Allan has officially made the opening night roster. After a strong season in Rockford last year, many expected him to return for at least part of this season to further his development a bit more. But he came into camp ready to prove he belongs at the top level, and did just that. The 32nd-overall pick in 2021 is still just 21 years old, and has a ton of upside despite sometimes getting overlooked with the presence of other blueliners like Kevin Korchinski and Artyom Levshunov.