Which Blackhawks need to make an impression during next 3 weeks to crack roster

There's no easing into training camp for Blackhawks forwards Dylan Sikura, John Quenneville, Alex Nylander, Anton Wedin, Matthew Highmore and Aleksi Saarela.

Same goes for defensemen Adam Boqvist, Slater Koekkoek and Carl Dahlstrom.

If these bubble players hope to carve out a spot on the opening-night roster, they absolutely must stand out during the team's first three exhibition games next week.

"I want to give them the opportunity to separate themselves because I think we have a lot of players who could conceivably play games for us this season," said coach Jeremy Colliton. "A couple games is probably not a perfect situation for those guys, but that's what they get. So they have to use it."

The Hawks, who opened camp at Fifth Third Arena on Friday, are at Washington on Monday, at Detroit on Tuesday and host Detroit on Wednesday.

Unless there's a trade or injuries, there probably isn't more than one or two forward spots available and one spot on defense.

But as GM Stan Bowman pointed out, the roster on Oct. 4 will likely look different from the one in November, December and January.

Said Colliton: "We want to be 30 guys deep … so just because you don't make the team, you can still position yourself to be part of things down the road as we get injuries or we're looking to add some things. So there should be some urgency across the board."

Perlini not mad:

For much of the summer, Brendan Perlini remained unsigned as a restricted free agent, but the forward finally agreed to a one-year, $874,125 deal on Sept. 6. Some thought Perlini deserved more, especially considering he scored 12 goals in just 46 games for the Hawks last season.

Perlini addressed the issue Friday.

"Regardless if I played for $15 million this year, $5 million or if I played for free, I'm going to go out, I'm going to have fun and I'm going to work hard every day, try to improve and just enjoy myself," he said. "Do you want to play and get what you're worth? Yeah, for sure.

"But at the end of the day, what's done is done as far as that whole side. Now it's just go play hockey and go have fun."

Acquired along with Dylan Strome from Arizona, Perlini is still only 23 years old and will be arbitration eligible next summer.

"We saw he had flashes of greatness last year," said GM Stan Bowman. "It's just a matter of the consistency for him. His best game is really impressive and it can help us. If we can get that to come out more often, then it'll be good for the team."

Boqvist update:

GM Stan Bowman said Adam Boqvist won't be returning to juniors this season, meaning the 19-year-old defenseman will either start the season with the Blackhawks or with their minor-league team in Rockford.

"Adam's made enough progress," Bowman said. "The biggest thing with him was always just the physicality and the strength and I thought he put in a lot of work."

Boqvist was the star of prospects camp in July and also shined in the Traverse City Prospect Tournament earlier this week.

"The drawback to going back to junior is you don't have the access to him then for the whole season," Bowman continued. "So he's a player we're going to want to have access to whether he's in Chicago or nearby in Rockford."