How Blackhawks’ Kevin Korchinski rebuilt his confidence after a shattering rookie season

Posted April 09, 2026 11:14 am

By Mark Lazerus

SAN JOSE, Calif. — It felt weird. It felt wrong. Here was Kevin Korchinski, lacing up his skates in the United Center locker room like it was any other day, any other practice. Teammates were laughing, joking around with each other as usual. There was idle conversation everywhere. In the coaches’ office, drills were being mapped out, systems were being tweaked, strategies were being designed for the Colorado Avalanche that night.

The planet was still spinning. But Korchinski’s world had stopped. Shattered.

Back home in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, his mom and his sister were still in the throes of grief, dealing not only with the bottomless sorrow and shock, but with all the logistics and paperwork that start as a distraction but quickly spiral into a burden. They were mourning; Korchinski was at a morning skate. It all felt so frivolous.

Korchinski’s Chicago Blackhawks teammates were there for him in the roiling wake of the sudden and shocking death of his father, Larry. His roommates in Chicago, Samuel Savoie and Wyatt Kaiser, offered him all the support he could hope for. His teammates flew to Saskatoon to be there for the funeral. His team embraced him fully. But there was no solace. There never is.

Losing a parent at any age is unmooring. It’s like having a chunk of your soul scooped out. It affects your life in myriad ways. Joy feels dulled. Fun feels unfathomable. Your sleep suffers. Your work suffers. The mental and emotional recovery can take weeks, months, years, a lifetime.

Korchinski, all of 19 years old, got nine days.

“It was weird,” he says now. “I was playing hockey, then tragedy happened, then I came back. I got all the support, but it was weird just being back, just playing hockey. Knowing what my mom and sister were going through back home, playing felt weird. It was really tough.”

More than two years later, Korchinski still feels his father’s absence. Every day. Larry taught him how to play hockey, how to love hockey. Korchinski’s first memories are of being on the ice with his dad. And his dad was the first person he’d call after every game, to reflect, to analyze, to break down and look forward. That instinct to reach your phone and fire off a text, to make a call, to want to hear his voice — that doesn’t go away. Maybe ever. Korchinski wouldn’t want it to, really. But over time, it becomes more manageable. The stabbing pain becomes a dull ache, the overwhelming grief evolves into a chronic condition, and you move on. You have to.

But it takes time. And Korchinski didn’t have time. He had to play.

“It happened out of the blue,” he said. “It wasn’t like you could prepare for it. And at that time, there was just a lot of negativity in my life. Your family always comes first, so I don’t want to call it a distraction (from hockey). But that’s the thing that matters most. It was tough. And it’s still tough.”

Kaiser and Savoie did what they could for their roommate. But words of support only go so far.

“I don’t know if it matters what age you are, a loss like that,” Kaiser said. “It changes the course of your life.”

While Korchinski was grieving privately, he was struggling very publicly. As the youngest defenseman in the NHL, he was getting caved in almost nightly. Too good for the Western Hockey League and too young for the American Hockey League, Korchinski made the Blackhawks roster as a teenager partly because, well, there was nowhere else he could logically go. And the fact is, he wasn’t ready.

Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson traded away 40-goal scorer Alex DeBrincat for the right to select Korchinski at No. 7 in the 2022 draft because of his offensive brilliance, skating ability and daring, aggressive play. But that’s not the Korchinski that broke camp with the Blackhawks a year later. This Korchinski was timid, careful and often overwhelmed. He was so fixated on not making the wrong play defensively that he was almost afraid to make the right play offensively. He wasn’t playing his game, and as a result, he struggled at both ends.

He was somewhat overwhelmed in those first two months before his father’s death. He was lost afterward. Korchinski gamely played in 76 contests that season, more than any other teenager in the league. But his numbers were ghastly. The Blackhawks were outscored 69-34 with him on the ice. Playing on a tanking team with a journeyman tweener — Jaycob Megna — as his most frequent partner, Korchinski had a 39.38% expected-goals share and was drowning in shot attempts, scoring chances and goals against. Night after night, his ego took hit after hit.

Outwardly, Korchinski kept projecting confidence and fun. Inwardly, he didn’t have much of either. Impatient fans and pundits were deeming him a bust already. And as a 19-year-old who hadn’t yet learned to manage his social media use, he saw it all and took it to heart.

“The first year in Chicago was hard,” he said. “We lost a lot of games, and it was just tough mentally on the confidence. I’d gone from being on the best team in the WHL to a bottom-three team where we were losing most of our games. And constantly losing just wears on you, it wears on the locker room.”

Time doesn’t heal all wounds, but it helps. In the two seasons since that rookie campaign, Korchinski has been quietly and steadily rebuilding his game, on the ice and between the ears. He’s watched patiently and without grudge as Sam Rinzel jumped ahead of him on the depth chart. He didn’t get down when Davidson spent another high pick on another defenseman, Artyom Levshunov. He didn’t beat himself up as nearly all of his buddies in Rockford got promoted while he was still languishing in the minors.

He got back to basics. He started carrying the puck more, using his brilliant skating to create more zone entries and more offensive opportunities, but learning not to overskate and put himself in bad positions defensively. He “quieted down” his game and made it simpler and more direct. He found ways to incorporate his style into the team structure, rather than abandoning it for the team structure. He accepted that mistakes will happen, and that it’s OK when they come from a place of effort, from a risk worth taking. He learned to have a short memory, to “flush the bad games” and “not get in your own head and let it escalate.”

He learned to turn off his phone. He remembered that hockey can be fun. He made the AHL All-Star team both seasons, winning the game’s MVP award in 2025. He started to feel like himself again.

“Social media has a weird way of putting stuff on your feed,” he said. “You’re not even talking about it, and it just shows up on your feed. It’s almost like they know too much about you. But the past few years, I’ve just learned to put your phone away, and have fun with it and play hockey. Because when you’re having fun and you’re playing confident, that’s when you’re at your best.”

Korchinski had two brief stints in the NHL last season, with marginally better results. And he had a pair of two-game call-ups this season as an emergency replacement. But Levshunov’s season-ending hand injury on March 27 created another NHL opportunity for Korchinski, one that was going to last more than a game or two. It was his first extended chance to impress first-year coach Jeff Blashill, and he knew it.

So right before he left Rockford to rejoin the Blackhawks, Savoie pulled him aside for a pep talk. He told him not to defer. He told him to play with confidence. He told him not to try to prove it all in one night, to not look over his shoulder, to not play scared. Then he dropped the big one.

You’re better than you think you are.

“He knows my game better than anyone,” Korchinski said. “He’s seen me play the past three years, I’ve seen him play. We have each other’s backs. It’s been awesome making a new lifelong best friend. That’s just how hockey works. It’s a great sport for that. You make friends that are going to last forever.”

Savoie knows puck. Korchinski’s latest stint has been inarguably his best in the NHL. Through five games, he’s playing at a 57.84% expected-goals share, the only player on the roster above water in that stretch. He’s been on the ice for just one goal against in those five games. He had the primary assist on Sacha Boisvert’s first NHL goal Saturday in Seattle, which proved to be the game-winner. He’s playing with a poise and a confidence that he simply hasn’t shown in the NHL before. Sure, it’s come in a sheltered, third-pairing role. But it’s progress, and it’s significant.

“It’s important for all our young ‘D,’ and certainly him included, to get the opportunity,” Blashill said. “This gives him an opportunity to show (how) he can help us win hockey games.”

He’s better than he thinks he is. Better than fans think he is. He’s been all but written off by so many, having tumbled down the organizational depth chart, but he’s still just 21, still the 18th-youngest defenseman to play in the NHL this season. That Seattle game was the 100th game of his career, but it only feels like he’s been around forever. He’s still incredibly young at a position that typically takes years longer to develop. Kaiser didn’t entrench himself in the NHL until he was 23. Neither did Alex Vlasic. Connor Murphy was 22. Even Duncan Keith was 23. Cale Makar didn’t debut in the NHL until he was 21. Korchinski stumbled badly out of the blocks two years ago, but an NHL career is a marathon, not a sprint. And he is still just getting warmed up.

Next season, he’ll no longer be waiver-exempt — this was news to him, which underscores how little he’s sweating the big picture — so he’s almost certain to be on the NHL roster. He’s planning to stay in Chicago over the summer for the first time to work out with teammates and staff, after seeing how much it helped his buddy Kaiser last offseason. He might not be running a power play — Levshunov and Rinzel are fighting for that role these days, and Blashill has found success with a five-forward unit, anyway — but he can still make an impact and be a part of the long-term solution in Chicago. He desperately wants to.

This 21-year-old Korchinski in the Blackhawks dressing room doesn’t look much different than the wide-eyed 19-year-old version who turned pro in the fall of 2023. He’s still a little too wiry and still needs to get bigger and stronger. He’s still boyish and still just a big kid in so many ways. But he carries himself differently now. He’s a little older and a lot wiser. He knows he has a mountain to climb and some teammates to leapfrog to become the star he was drafted to be, but he’s also open to the idea of evolving into a different kind of defenseman and finding a role that suits him. Just in these past couple of weeks, he’s said he’s learned “so many things about the game I didn’t know before,” and praised Blashill and his staff for being encouraging rather than “burying you” for a single mistake.

In hindsight, it was clearly detrimental to Korchinski’s development to have him in the NHL as a 19-year-old. He wasn’t ready, and his on-ice struggles and off-ice personal tragedy caused significant damage that he’s still working his way back from. But there weren’t any great options for Davidson that year. Toying with overmatched teens in the WHL wouldn’t have done much for Korchinski, either. Perhaps he was just born two years too early. The new rules that allow 19-year-olds to play in the AHL or to go from the juniors to the NCAA would have greatly benefited Korchinski.

“That’s going to benefit a lot of young players,” Korchinski said. “I have some buddies who will probably be in the ‘A’ next year. They can start their pro career earlier, learn the pro game, build those habits, and then when they’re ready, they can make that jump and make it with confidence. I think it’s cool. It’s hard to say if it would have helped me, because it’s in the past and the rule wasn’t in place.”

Korchinski says that a lot. It’s in the past. One of the biggest things he’s learned over these past two seasons in Rockford is not to dwell on that crushing rookie season and not to let it define him and his career.

“I’m still only 21,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of buddies who don’t have the privilege to play pro hockey, to play at this level. So I’m just excited. I’m happy. I’m trying to run with this opportunity. It’s been fun, and when you’re having fun, that’s when you’re playing your best hockey.”

He learned that from his dad.

“He’s the reason I play,” Korchinski said. “He was my coach growing up, he taught me how to play. Before I even had consciousness, I was playing hockey because he played and he wanted me to play. Life hits you in many ways, and you have to find a way to move forward. I try to keep his memory close, go out there and try to play for him. I just want to make him proud.”