Blackhawks coaching Kevin Korchinski on positioning while determining where he'll start season

Kevin Korchinski hasn't taken a step back in terms of his development. Because he's a year older, however, he might be forced to temporarily take a step back in terms of league.

Now age 20, the Blackhawks defenseman seems more likely than not headed to the AHL for the first time in his career to start this season. As a 19-year-old Canadian coming straight from junior hockey last season, he wasn't eligible to go to Rockford; now he is.

"The rules really didn't benefit him," coach Luke Richardson said Friday. "He and [Wyatt] Kaiser played really well out of camp. They deserved all the ice time they got. And then as we got banged up as the season went along, if at any point in time they struggled, Kaiser was able to go down but, because of the rules, Kevin wasn't. And you don't want to send him back to juniors."

Those struggles were fully expected for a player as raw as Korchinski on a team as bad as the Hawks. Management was not disappointed by his performance over his first 76 NHL appearances, and he learned a lot from the experience .

Nevertheless, he may not get a chance to log 76 NHL games again this season. Hawks general manager Kyle Davidson said Korchinski "potentially" could be Rockford-bound, and the fact he has skated during the first two days of training camp on a pairing with Louis Crevier — who is definitely Rockford-bound — foreshadows the current plan.

The massive strides fellow defensive prospects like Kaiser, Crevier, Ethan Del Mastro and sudden NHL stalwart Alex Vlasic have made in Rockford during the past few seasons have affirmed Davidson's belief that spending some time there can benefit every prospect.

There is still time, of course, for Korchinski — who switched to No. 14 this year — to impress the front office so much during camp that they change the plan. He did gain six or seven pounds this summer, an amount he described as enough to feel stronger when delivering hits and battling for pucks but not enough to slow down his elite skating ability.

And even if he does start in Rockford, it would be very surprising if he didn't return to the NHL by the second half of the season.

But the initial roster math is simple enough. Vlasic, Seth Jones, Connor Murphy, Alec Martinez and T.J. Brodie are locked into five spots, Kaiser is the favorite to earn the sixth and the Hawks would prefer for someone like Isaak Phillips to sit around as the seventh defenseman.

"[Korchinski] just has to round out his game," Davidson said. "It's always nice to see that physical development, but finding that consistency game-to-game on both sides of the puck [is important]. ... Figuring out how to defend consistently at the NHL level will be a big key for him."

In the meantime during camp — before a final decision on his season-opening destination is made — Richardson will work with Korchinski on his positioning, just like he did much of last season.

One scenario they discussed Friday was his positioning near the offensive blue line. He has a tendency to "float around" while watching the play, sometimes drifting into the neutral zone, but Richardson would like him to hold the line tighter.

"Not too many people are going to beat you from the far blue line to your net if you stay in [the right spot]," Richardson said. "But if you're out [in the neutral zone] and it's a 50-50 [puck] and you dive forward, you have to stop and get momentum to come back, and then it's going to be more difficult."