A look at the future? Blackhawks go with youngest defenseman group yet

Posted March 18, 2026 9:10 am

By Scott Powers

When Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson started his rebound four years ago, he largely started with his defense.

Maybe it had something to do with his closest advisers being former NHL defensemen, but regardless, that’s where he began. Davidson liked the defenseman prospects the Blackhawks had coming in the system and decided to use some of his most valuable draft capital to add even more.

On Tuesday, Davidson’s long-term vision of the Blackhawks defense was as real as it’s ever been. After trading Seth Jones last season and Connor Murphy this season, Davidson depleted his defense of veterans. Matt Grzelcyk, who had played every game this season, was the lone vet still standing. But Tuesday, Blackhawks coach Jeff Blashill decided to make Grzelcyk a healthy scratch against the Minnesota Wild and hand the defensive keys over to six players 24 years old or younger.

There was Alex Vlasic (24 years old, 2019 second-round pick) paired with Artyom Levshunov (20, 2024 first-round pick) as the first pairing. Then there was Wyatt Kaiser (23, 2020 third-round pick) paired with Sam Rinzel (21, 2022 first-round pick) as the second pairing. Finally, there was Ethan Del Mastro (23, 2021 fourth-round pick) paired with Louis Crevier (24, 2020 seventh-round pick) on the third.

With the season winding down, Blashill wanted to take the opportunity to see the young defense in action, especially Del Mastro, who hasn’t gotten a lot of NHL games this season and will no longer be waiver-exempt next season. Whether it’s Del Mastro or Kevin Korchinski (a 2022 first-round pick) in the group, Blashill might already have his entire defense for next season. He and the organization are likely evaluating that now. Davidson could have a decision to make in June on whether to draft another defenseman high.

“Some of it is just an opportunity to get Delly in there a couple of games in a row,” Blashill said of Del Mastro. “We want to see, it’s hard to know if you don’t get a look at him in terms of where the game’s at. I think he’s played well enough in Rockford and deserved that. Certainly, it wasn’t a knock at all on Gryz. He’s played really good hockey when he’s been in there, but it’s something we talked about around the trade deadline, that that might be a possibility, and we decided to go that route tonight.”

The results Tuesday were mostly positive. Though the defense showed its age and inexperience at times and got dominated by the Wild in the opening 20 minutes to fall behind 3-1, the group got better as the game went along and was part of the reason the Blackhawks rallied to a 3-3 tie before falling 4-3 in overtime.

The defense was especially more active in all zones as the game progressed. It stepped up and closed down gaps. It killed plays earlier in the defensive zone. It moved the puck quickly and created cleaner breakouts. It also jumped into the play more in the offensive zone.

“It’s weird how the game changes sometimes,” Crevier said. “I think once we got our rhythm, we gained confidence. Then we just went all in and kept going. Once again, it’s all about trying to do that more often.”

With the Blackhawks trailing 3-2 in the third period, there was a sequence when Del Mastro pinched along the left boards to keep the Wild from getting to the puck, and the puck eventually found Crevier on the right point, and he put a massive shot on net to create a scoring chance off a rebound. The Blackhawks didn’t score there, but they were close.

Not too long later, Levshunov caught the Wild on a bad change when he quickly moved the puck from the Blackhawks’ blue line to the Wild’s blue line and connected with Connor Bedard. Bedard entered the zone, drove the net and dished a backhander to Frank Nazar, who lifted the puck past the goalie and into the net to tie the score.

“I think it was just a good heads-up play by Arty to get the puck up, Bedsy using his speed to get around the guys, and they made a bad change there,” Nazar said. “We were blessed to get that opportunity and nice play over and just able to put it in.”

The assist was the ribbon on Levshunov’s night. He played a career-high 26:29, with his previous best being 25:42 earlier this season. Blashill sought to reward Levshunov for his recent play and moved him to the top pairing with Vlasic on Tuesday. Levshunov played 20:06 of his ice time at five-on-five.

Overall, Blashill was pleased with Levshunov again.

“A lot of good stuff,” Blashill said. “Moments of some decisions. He still has to do a better job at times with the puck, but overall, I thought lots of good stuff. Obviously, a great play on the game-tying goal to get it up to Bedsy. He’s making progress in things like deception with the puck and things like that. He defended hard, he was out there a lot of times against (Kirill) Kaprizov and (Matt) Boldy and that crew, and I thought he defended real hard and did a good job with it.”

Blashill also liked how Kaiser played in his first game since March 12. He had been out with an injury. Kaiser led the Blackhawks in five-on-five ice time at 21:12. He also had a team-best expected goals percentage at 75.22, according to Natural Stat Trick. Kaiser was especially effective at using his speed and carrying the puck out of dangerous areas.

“Kaiser was excellent,” Blashill said. “I thought the group had moments of good and moments of not good enough, and we just have to continue to kind of throw them to the fire and watch them grow.”

No player has grown over the season more than Crevier. He was expected to be the seventh defenseman when the season began and was kept on the roster partially because he required waivers. But from the start of the season to Tuesday, Crevier has proved he’s much more than that. Though offense isn’t his game, he’s come through with some clutch offensive plays this season. Tuesday featured two of the bigger ones: He scored the Blackhawks’ first goal with a shot that was clocked at 105 miles per hour and picked up an assist on the second goal when his shot from the point led to Ryan Greene’s scoring at the net.

“I’m not going to do some crazy stuff out there,” Crevier said. “Just put some pucks on net and shooting hard. It’s nice when I have my teammates going (to the front of the net) too, because when you’re in the NHL, every goalie is so good. I need some traffic in front to create something, but it’s nice.”

It wouldn’t be surprising if Blashill stuck with the same defensive group when the Blackhawks travel to Minnesota to face the Wild again Thursday. As for Tuesday, the six young defensemen held their own.