Photo Credit: Cheryl Adams/HockeyBroad
Nick Leddy walked around the Xcel Energy Center like the conquering hero at the NHL Draft a few weeks ago. The Minnesota native is well known around those parts, especially since he was drafted by the Minnesota Wild, after playing his college hockey for the Minnesota Golden Gophers.
But the Wild didn’t hold onto Leddy, instead dealing him to the Chicago Blackhawks, along with Kim Johnsson, for the disappointing (and now residing in Edmonton) Cam Barker. Like a few of the trades that Stan Bowman has made in his tenure as general manager of the Blackhawks, this one is already looking like quite a steal.
No one expected Leddy to be with the Blackhawks, at least to start the year, given that he was just 19 when the season started. But an impressive training camp and an injury that left Brian Campbell out for the first month of the season led to his being inserted into the line up last October.
Leddy didn’t perform so well in his first action with the Hawks, but did show steady improvement, along with flashing great potential on the blue line. His first sequence with Chicago was a bit short-lived, though, after the Hawks sent him down to Rockford after the first six games of the season. In those first six, Leddy notched a goal and a minus-1 on the stat sheet.
But later on in the season, and fed up with inconsistency on a blue line that featured Nick Boynton and Jordan Hendry on a nightly basis, the Blackhawks brought Leddy back from Rockford in January. He would still be shuffled back to Rockford to play with the Icehogs when the Blackhawks had off days, and over the All Star break, but essentially this return trip to the Hawks was a permanent one for Leddy.
His steady improvement resulted in him seeing more time as well, jumping from playing with Hendry in inconsistent minutes, to seeing time on the first line with Duncan Keith when Joel Quenneville switched his defensive pairings around. He also saw an occasional role on special teams. Rookie mistakes were still in order, of course, but Leddy began to compensate much better and recovered quicker when he did find himself beat by an opposing forward as the season went on.
After last weekend’s trade by Stan Bowman, it looks like Leddy will once again be filling in for Brian Campbell. The only difference is that, this time, it will be more of a permanent situation.
Brian Campbell was reunited with former Hawks general manager Dale Tallon last weekend, part of two big draft day deals orchestrated by Chicago, with a big question mark in the form of Rostislav Olesz coming back in return for the veteran d-man. Along with freeing up a great deal of cap space, one of Chicago’s two big trades at the NHL Draft tells us something about the blue line heading into the 2011-12 season.
First, it means that Niklas Hjalmarsson is safe. Coming into the summer, there was a strong indication, one of Hjammer or Campbell would be gone, and now we know the result. But the bigger dynamic of that trade revolves around Nick Leddy.
Campbell was the Hawks’ no. 3 defenseman, a role they won’t be able to fill in a thin defensive market this summer, which has already been picked pretty clean. They’ve already gotten depth on the blue line to make up for Campbell’s absence in the top six, but the question is who will step into the role vacated by Campbell.
The most logical answer is Nick Leddy. We know how high Bowman and co. are on this kid, as we saw last year, and trading Campbell especially indicates that the Blackhawks are counting on his continued progression after a solid first season, and a healthy chunk of playing time in the postseason.
The big question is whether or not the 20-year-old is up to the task. Given the rapid progression we saw in 2010-11, I wouldn’t hesitate to say that he is up to the task of filling in for Campbell. He’s not going to replace 51 right away, but after what we saw last year, there should be little doubt in the minds of the Blackhawks and their fans that this kid is going to continue his progression as a defenseman and become a staple on this Chicago blue line for the foreseeable future.
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