The Taylor Hall injury saga took another turn for the worse Monday.
The Blackhawks’ veteran forward originally injured his left shoulder Oct. 11 against the Bruins. After coach Luke Richardson initially deemed him “week-to-week,” he missed just one game before returning Oct. 16 against the Maple Leafs, admitting he wasn’t 100% healthy but believed he could play through the discomfort.
Then Saturday against the Golden Knights — three games into his return — a hit from Knights defenseman Brayden Pachal re-aggravated the injury. He missed most of the second period but returned for the third.
Now, Richardson has ruled Hall out for at least the next several games, including Tuesday’s rematch against the Bruins and Friday’s rematch against the Knights. His status is again considered week-to-week.
“He was trying to play through it, and instead of making him still try to do that, you could always have a risk of him hurting it worse,” Richardson said.
Hall’s absence will disrupt the Hawks’ offense during a brutal stretch of the schedule. He has assisted on both of Connor Bedard’s goals so far and played alongside him in every situation. Without him, Bedard will be flanked Tuesday by Nick Foligno and Tyler Johnson.
“[Hall is] known to be a skilled guy and a speedy guy, but he plays both ways and plays the right way, taking hits to make plays,” Richardson added. “We’re going to miss that, for sure, but that’s an opportunity for other guys to see what he did and try to emulate that.”
The one fortunate aspect of this timing is that forward Philipp Kurashev is likely to return to the Hawks’ lineup Tuesday, making his regular-season debut after missing several weeks due to a left wrist injury. He’ll replace Hall in the lineup, albeit not directly on the same line.
Kurashev picked up the injury in the Sept. 28 preseason opener against the Blues, but originally had “no clue” it was so significant. He practiced the next day before being shut down and ultimately missing the first six regular-season games.
But the 24-year-old Switzerland native fully participated in Saturday’s morning skate and Monday’s practice. He anticipates, barring any sudden inflammation, to receive final clearance Tuesday morning.
“It’s not fun [to miss that long],” he said. “It’s more hard mentally because you can’t be with the guys — especially on that long road trip for 11 days. It was pretty tough, but now I’m happy to be back.”
Kurashev joins Lukas Reichel and Andreas Athanasiou on the second line, reuniting a trio that played together quite a bit the last month of last season and that also started training camp together.
Richardson likes them together, and Reichel and Kurashev — two close friends off the ice, partially because they can speak German to each other — like playing together.
During Reichel and Kurashev’s 157 minutes of five-on-five ice time together last season, the Hawks outscored opponents 7-5 but generated only 40.8% of the scoring chances, suggesting that goal differential might’ve been unsustainable. They’ll try to prove this season their chemistry makes it sustainable.
Kurashev should be particularly motivated as he begins his new two-year, arbitration-awarded contract carrying a $2.25 million salary-cap hit. To justify that salary, the Hawks will expect him to improve substantially upon his stat line last season of 25 points in 70 games.
Efficiency will be a key to doing so. He has scored on only 4.2% and 4.3% of his shot attempts the last two seasons, respectively, after converting 7.7% as a rookie in 2021.
“I expect a lot from myself, so hopefully this year I can take a step forward,” he said during camp. “[It’s about] being more calm and relaxed when I get chances. I think we were creating a lot of chances last year, but...the execution wasn’t there always.”
