The tank is a machine. It’s cold, it’s loud, and it’s remarkably efficient at grinding hope into a fine, sellable powder. For the Chicago Blackhawks, the 2023-24 season hasn’t been about winning hockey games so much as it’s been about stress-testing the architecture of a multi-year rebuild. We aren't watching a sport; we’re watching a beta test.
Connor Bedard is the shiny UI that keeps people from looking at the spaghetti code beneath the surface. But as the trade deadline recedes and the "meaningless" games of April loom, the front office is looking to port over a few more assets from the developmental server. Management calls this "giving them a taste." Economists call it managing depreciating assets.
If you’ve been paying attention to the Rockford IceHogs or the NCAA wire, you know the names. But bringing them to the United Center isn’t a reward. It’s a data-collection exercise. Here are the three prospects likely to see their names on a Chicago sweater before the lights go out on this season.
Frank Nazar
Nazar is the high-bandwidth solution Chicago desperately needs. After a hip surgery that effectively wiped out his post-draft year—the hockey equivalent of a hardware recall—the Michigan standout has spent this season proving the repair held. He’s fast. Not "NHL fast," but "glitch-in-the-physics-engine" fast.
The friction here is the contract. If Nazar signs the moment Michigan’s season ends, he burns the first year of his entry-level deal just to play a handful of games in a lost season. It’s a $925,000 accounting error that gives the Blackhawks one less year of cheap control over his prime. General Manager Kyle Davidson has to decide if five games of Nazar in April is worth losing a year of his cap-controlled life later. It’s a classic tech trade-off: do you ship the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) now, or wait for the full release next fall? Given the state of the roster, the temptation to give the fans something to look at besides the scoreboard might be too high to ignore.
Landon Slaggert
Slaggert is the plug-and-play peripheral. He’s not a game-breaker; he’s a system optimizer. Coming out of Notre Dame, he’s the kind of player coaches love because he doesn’t require a manual. He hits, he kills penalties, and he exists in the uncomfortable spaces on the ice where stars don't like to get their jerseys dirty.
He’s already signed. The ink is dry. For Slaggert, these final weeks are a performance review with a very high ceiling. The Blackhawks need to know if he’s a bottom-six fixture or just another body taking up space in the spreadsheet. He’s the defensive patch for a team that has spent most of the season leaking goals like a cracked database. Don't expect highlights. Expect him to be the guy who makes sure the other team’s highlights are slightly more difficult to film.
Ethan Del Mastro
The blue line in Chicago has been a rotating door of veteran placeholders and young guys trying not to drown. Ethan Del Mastro is the structural integrity check. He’s been the best defenseman in Rockford for long stretches, showing a level of poise that suggests he’s outgrown the AHL’s sandbox.
At 6-foot-4, Del Mastro isn’t just a big body; he’s an upgrade to the team’s physical processing power. The conflict here is the "over-ripening" theory. Some GMs believe you shouldn't bring a kid up just to see him get shelled by Colorado or Dallas when he could be playing meaningful playoff minutes in the minors. But let’s be real: Chicago’s defense is currently held together by tape and prayers. Bringing Del Mastro up isn’t about winning; it’s about seeing how he handles the increased latency of the NHL game.
The Blackhawks are essentially running a fire sale where the only things they aren't selling are the draft picks. Every one of these call-ups is a gamble on the future, played with chips that are currently losing value every time the team drops another 4-1 decision. You can talk about "culture" all you want, but at the end of the day, these kids are being dropped into a burning building to see if they can find the fire extinguisher.
Is it fair? Not really. But in a league defined by hard caps and aging curves, fairness is a luxury this franchise traded away a long time ago. We’ll see them in Chicago because the alternative—watching the current roster stagger across the finish line—is bad for the brand.
Are three weeks of data really worth the risk of shattering a prospect’s confidence before his career even starts? We're about to find out.