Getting to know the 3 newest Chicago Blackhawks

Any time a new player comes to the Chicago Blackhawks in a trade, you hear the same questions: What are your strengths? How does it feel to join this team? Did you see the trade coming?

All legit and perfectly fine questions.

But there's so much more to each player's story, especially when it comes to who they are off the ice.

What makes Tomas Fleischmann, Christian Ehrhoff and Dale Weise — the three truly new faces the Hawks acquired near the trade deadline — tick?

Tomas Fleischmann

“So, Tomas, what is your most memorable NHL moment?”

Standing in front of his locker, the newly acquired winger paused, smiled and delivered the answer in his thick, Czech accent: “I would remember the 3 goals I scored against Crow here.”

Blackhawks goalie Corey Crawford had no memory of that happening and wondered if it came during their AHL days when Fleischmann played in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

“He scored on me left and right when he played there,” Crawford said.

It happened, though, in an NHL game — on Dec. 15, 2010, when Fleischmann scored three times during a 4-3 Colorado Avalanche victory over the Hawks at the United Center.

And all 3 goals came in a 10-minute, 12-second span of the third period.

“The puck was finding me,” Fleischmann said.

Fleischmann and his wife have a daughter who will be 2 at the end of March. He enjoys tennis, golf and fishing.

He began this season on a professional tryout with Montreal and made the team after he impressed during training camp and the preseason. Fleischmann spent the end of last season with Anaheim and appeared in Games 5 and 7 against the Hawks in the Western Conference finals.

“We felt pretty strongly that we could beat Chicago last year,” Fleischmann said. “There was too many times in that series where we could have taken control of the whole series, but a team like Chicago knew what to do. …

“The second overtime (of Game 2) was pretty long there. We hit like three posts and then they scored the game-winning goal (in the third OT). It could be 2-0 there and it would be a different series.”

The Hawks are Fleischmann's sixth NHL team, and he has yet to reach the NHL Final. Thoughts of getting that far with the Hawks, though, are not entering his mind.

“It would be nice, but I know how hard it is to get by every round,” Fleischmann said. “It's nothing I'm focusing on right now. I just have to focus about my game.”

Christian Ehrhoff

Many pro hockey players get turned on to the sport by a father, a grandfather, an uncle.

But not Christian Ehrhoff. No, the 33-year-old defenseman's influence came from his older sister, whom he skated with while she took figure-skating lessons.

Then he saw a hockey game on TV and was hooked. “I said to my parents, ‘That's what I would like to do.' ”

It wasn't easy because Ehrhoff's town didn't have a junior team, so his parents drove him to Krefeld, Germany, where he played until he turned pro as a teenager.

“Every day they drove me back and forth, and they made a lot of sacrifices to get me to where I am today,” he said.

Ehrhoff was taken by San Jose in the fourth round of the 2001 draft and has played for the Sharks, Canucks, Sabres, Penguins, Kings and Blackhawks.

Ehrhoff is a father of three girls, ages 6, 4 and 15 months. Before the kids came along, he enjoyed a good round of golf and said he still tries to get to the movies once in awhile with his wife.

Acquired for Rob Scuderi, Ehrhoff has 1 assist and 14 shots on goal in five games. Before joining the Hawks, he was playing for Ontario, the Kings' AHL affiliate.

“I just try to jump in holes and I've gotten some good looks and good opportunities,” he said. “And when I'm on the power play and I have a chance, I'll shoot it.

“For me, the only thing that changed and that probably helped when I went down to Ontario is getting my confidence going again, and just don't think too much when I play.”

Ehrhoff has been a healthy scratch the last three games.

Dale Weise

Weise, a 26-year-old winger who plays a gritty, in-your-face game, is a father of two. He and his wife have a 2½-year-old son Hunter and an 8-month-old daughter Jordanna.

I asked every player what they like to do away from the rink, and Weise's answer was just what you would want to hear from a new dad.

“Well, I've got my two kids, so that's pretty much all my hobbies,” he said. “They're young. My son plays mini-sticks all day long and then wants me to play with him. That's my hobbies — I wouldn't have it any other way.”

Weise learned he was traded just before going to sleep Feb. 26. Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin, though, neglected to tell Weise that teammate Tomas Fleischmann also was going to Chicago.

“Flash texts me and he's pumped up. I thought, ‘Oh, geez. I didn't even know,' ” Weise said. “I was pretty excited that I had a guy coming with me. It's nice when you've got a familiar face every day to see.”

As for the most memorable moments of his young career, Weise has quite a few, with 2 overtime game-winners in the postseason and another coming 2:18 into a Game 7 victory over Boston in 2014.

For sheer drama, though, it would be difficult to beat what Weise did in Game 3 of the Canadiens' first-round series vs. Ottawa last year.

The Senators were leading 1-0 and less than six minutes away from getting back into the series when Weise grabbed a floating puck with his hand in front of the net, put it down and banged it home to tie things up with just 5:47 remaining.

“Their goalie was unbelievable,” Weise said of Barrington High grad Craig Anderson, who stopped 45 shots. “He made some huge saves. It looked like we probably weren't going to get one on him. … So that was a big goal, obviously, to tie it up.”

Then, 8:47 into overtime, Weise gave the Canadiens a 3-0 series lead by ripping a shot past Anderson. He paused and thrust his arms skyward as delirious teammates mobbed him along the boards.

“Anytime you score a goal in the playoffs in overtime, it's pretty exciting,” he said. “That's kind of what you dream of is scoring overtime winners when you're playing street hockey as a kid.

“You're not scoring in a 5-2 game in Game 47. You're always dreaming of scoring an overtime goal. So you can't really put words into how exciting it is.”

• • •

Like Antoine Vermette, Kimmo Timonen and Andrew Desjardins last season, Fleischmann, Ehrhoff and Weiss all are hoping to capture their first Stanley Cup.

And if that day comes, we'll see if any of them can put that feeling into words.

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