Blackhawks assign young defenseman Boqvist to London Knights

The future is bright. But the future - not unexpectedly - will have to wait.

Hours after the Blackhawks completed practice Wednesday at MB Ice Arena, they decided to assign 18-year-old defenseman Adam Boqvist to the Ontario Hockey League's London Knights.

This was the original plan when the Hawks drafted Boqvist with the eighth overall pick in June, but coaches and management decided to keep him around a bit longer because of his eye-opening play at training camp.

"Thanks @nhlblackhawks for these weeks!" Boqvist tweeted at about 4 p.m.

Coach Joel Quenneville said Monday that "the rigors of a lot of games against bigger men" might be the biggest reason the Hawks would send him to juniors.

"And you know," Quenneville added, "it's a long year."

The Hawks now have seven healthy D-men. Unless they make a trade, that means Brandon Davidson will be signed soon.

"We like what we see in him," Quenneville said Tuesday. "He's got some real professionalism to him as far as he prepares. He's got some awareness to the young kids coming along as well and paying attention to their development in the game and in practices as well. … Steady is probably the best way to describe him."

As for Boqvist, he struggled a bit in an 8-6 preseason loss to Detroit Tuesday at the United Center. His first-period miscues included:

• Mishandling a pass at the offensive blue line while trying to quarterback the power play.

• Yielding too much ground to Andreas Athanasiou, allowing Detroit's forward to get off a 40-foot blast that sailed over Cam Ward's left shoulder and into the net.

• Giving up the puck at the offensive blue line and allowing a quick scoring chance the other way.

Davidson, meanwhile, was paired with Jan Rutta and looked like a heady veteran who has 151 NHL games under his belt.