Team Canada won gold at the 4 Nations Face-Off, and although Teuvo Teravainen, the lone representative from the Chicago Blackhawks, didn't win, former Blackhawk Brandon Hagel did.
It seems so long ago that Hagel played for the team. Before winning the draft lottery and being able to draft Connor Bedard, it appeared like it was going to be a long rebuild.
While I still don't think it was a great move to break the roster down the way they did, it happened and Hagel was dealt to the Tampa Bay Lightning when he was 23 years old and after scoring 20+ goals in back-to-back seasons.
The Blackhawks have had a lot of turnover over the past three years and there aren't very many players on the team who have played with Hagel. Six of these current Blackhawks played with Hagel in Chicago, but one first met him on the Lightning before he found his way to Chicago.
The six Blackhawks who played with Hagel when he was last on the Blackhawks in 2021-22 were Seth Jones, Connor Murphy, Alex Vlasic, Lukas Reichel, Philipp Kurashev, and Arvid Soderblom. The player who first played with Hagel in Tampa Bay before signing with the Blackhawks this past offseason was Pat Maroon.
Maroon played the remainder of the 2021-22 season with Hagel, but also the entire 2022-23 season as well before he left.
A few of the Blackhawks who did play with Hagel in Chicago were at the start of their careers and didn't play very many games with him in his final season before being traded. This included the likes of Vlasic, Reichel, and Soderblom. Vlasic played his first 15 games in the NHL that season, Reichel played his first 11, and Soderblom appeared in his first three.
As for Jones, Murphy, and Kurashev, they were all already full-time members of the team. Jones put up 51 points and was third on the team in scoring while Kurashev got into 67 games and Murphy into 57 due to injury.
While this highlights just how much has changed in such a short time for the rebuilding Blackhawks, it also shines a light on the negative impacts of giving up on a player too soon.
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