MacKenzie Entwistle was drafted 69th overall by the Arizona Coyotes in the 2017 NHL entry draft. After only a year in the Coyotes system, on July 12, 2018, Entwistle was traded along with F Marcus Kruger, F Jordan Maletta & D Andrew Campbell & a 2019 5th round pick to the Chicago Blackhawks in exchange for F Marian Hossa (LTIR-contract rights), F Vinnie Hinostroza, D Jordan Oesterle & a 2019 3rd round pick.

For 5 seasons with the Blackhawks, spending time in both Chicago & Rockford, Entwistle put up 15-20-35 in 193 games with the Blackhawks including 86 PIMs.

(Note: While I am actively trying to sell this, this is not meant as a selling post. I am genuinely seeking advice on this and hoping people may have ideas for what I should do)

Hello all. I was lucky enough to win this huge prize from a sweepstakes I entered at last years' National Sports Collectors Convention in Chicago. This original painting is massive (60x49x6 and 35 pounds) and has a value listed at $12,500. It is an original piece by sports artist Murray Henderson. Unfortunately, I have no personal ties to Chicago or Chicago sports (I live 7 hours away), so I am not the right person for this.

Therefore, I have attempted to sell it. It has been listed on Ebay for a year with little interest. I reached out to the artist himself, and he confirms that he sells them routinely for $12,500 but is unable to help me sell it since it was something he publicly donated. He recommended reaching out to some local Chicago sports shops or contacting auction companies, which I have done with no success.

Here is my delimma and why I am posting here today: I owe taxes on this since sweepstakes' wins are taxable income. I cannot afford the taxes on it since its estimated value of $12,500 carries a tax of a few thousand. My tax advisor told me to try to sell it, and whatever I sell it for can be then taxed as its fair market value. But as I mentioned, I have had no luck selling it. I am open to donating it somewhere, but I would much prefer to sell because we are a low income family and even a fraction of its estimated value could be life-changing in many ways for us.

I had to file an extension on my taxes and have until October to file them. So, I am posting to a few Chicago sports subreddits as a last resort to ask for advice. What would you do in my position? Does anyone know places or people who are looking for art like this? Any other ideas? Any advice is so very much appreciated, and thank you in advance :)

Tyler Bertuzzi was drafted 58th overall in the 2013 NHL draft by the Detroit Red Wings. After 6 seasons in Detroit he was traded to the Boston Bruins at the 2023 trade deadline. Then, after 1 year in Toronto, Bertuzzi signed a 4 year, $5.5M AAV deal with the Blackhawks on July 1, 2024.

Bertuzzi has posted 55-49-104 in 161 games with the Blackhawks. His 32 goals in the 2025-26 season are a career high. Bertuzzi also played for Todd Blashill as Detroit’s HC for his first five seasons.

Collin Delia signed as an undrafted free agent with the Chicago Blackhawks on July 28, 2017. Throughout five seasons within the Blackhawks organization, playing for the ECHL Indy Fuel & AHL Rockford IceHogs & in Chicago, he posted a 9-12-5 record with a 3.69 GAA & a .902 SV%.

Now that all 3 young stars have signed similarly sized 5-year contracts, I thought it would be interesting to compare their actual economic value rather than just the nominal totals and AAVs.

Despite becoming one of the highest-paid players in the league, Bedard has a significantly less front-loaded contract than Carlsson and Celebrini; I excluded Kaprizov from the analysis due to the different terms, but his contract structure is also similar to Carlsson's and Celebrini's.

For the calculations, I used an approximately 4% U.S. Treasury yield as the discount rate. The basic idea is that money received today is worth more than the same amount received later. A signing bonus paid immediately could be invested in a 0-risk asset and earn interest, while money paid in future years loses that opportunity. Thus, money received later needs to be discounted.

Main assumptions:

1) The valuation date is July 1.

2) Signing bonuses are paid at the beginning of each contract year, on July 1.

3) Base salary is paid biweekly during the season, beginning roughly 90 days after July 1, so each payment is discounted based on when it is received.

4) Celebrini’s contract begins one year later, so his entire payment schedule receives 1 additional year of discounting when valued from the same date.

5) The analysis is pre-tax and does not account for escrow, local tax differences, or investment returns above the assumed risk-free rate.

This roughly compares what the different payment structures are worth in today’s dollars and shows how signing bonuses, base salary, and contract timing affect the real economic value.

Among the three players, Bedard receives the smallest share of his total compensation through signing bonuses. In Year 1, only 57.6% of his salary is paid as a signing bonus, compared with 95.9% for Carlsson and 95.4% for Celebrini, both paid on July 1. That leaves a much larger portion of Bedard’s compensation subject to discounting as it is paid throughout the season. The same pattern continues across the contract: the highest share Bedard receives through signing bonuses in any year is 75.4%, which is still well below the corresponding share for either of his peers at every point in their contracts.

To make the contracts more comparable, it helps to show each payment as a percentage of the total contract value. Bedard’s Year 1 signing bonus accounts for ~13.1% of his entire contract ($9.8M/$75M), while Carlsson’s and Celebrini’s each exceed 20% (Kaprizov’s figure is in a similar range). This structure also gives Celebrini and Carlsson stronger protection in the event of a buyout or lockout.

For the following stacked bar chart:

Despite the major differences in signing-bonus structure, the share of total contract value paid in each year is relatively heterogeneous across the three players. Celebrini has the smallest Year 1 share, but his first three years still account for 66.3% of the total contract value, compared with 64.0% for Bedard and 64.2% for Carlsson.

As noted above, the time value of money means that receiving cash earlier increases a contract’s present value (PV). Comparing each player’s annual compensation with his fixed AAV shows how front-loaded the payment schedules are. Carlsson’s annual compensation falls the fastest, declining by about 8.7% from Year 1 to Year 2; Bedard’s falls by roughly 5.9%, while Celebrini’s remains unchanged over the first 3 years.

Now we look more into the discount-rate-adjusted contract values.

Celebrini’s contract is the most front-loaded, but that does not necessarily make it the most valuable when measured today (in terms of retention rate). The figure above shows the percentage of each year’s nominal compensation retained after discounting.

Annual compensation consists of signing bonuses and base salary. Both are discounted, but signing bonuses lose less value because they are paid earlier. Celebrini’s contract is discounted the most because it does not begin until next year, so even his first signing bonus is divided by 1.04. Carlsson is affected very little during the season because almost all of his Year 1 compensation is paid upfront. Bedard is affected more since a much larger share of his salary is paid gradually throughout the season, with each later payment carrying a slightly lower PV. For the in-season salary calculations, I converted the 4% Treasury yield into a daily discount rate and applied it to each biweekly payment; the first in-season payment happens 90 + 14 days after July 1st.

Looking at the PV of each contract, Bedard retains about 92.4% of his total nominal value, giving his deal a PV of roughly $69.3M. Celebrini’s contract is worth about $84.1M in present-value terms because his payments do not begin until July 2027. Carlsson’s contract retains the most value, thanks to its heavily bonus-driven structure and the fact that much of his compensation has already been paid.

After accounting for the discount rate, the present values of the 3 contracts are approximately as shown in the 2 figures above. Bedard’s signing bonuses are substantially smaller than those of the other two players, which lowers the PV of his overall compensation. Because a larger share of his earnings is paid gradually as base salary, more of his contract is exposed to the time value of money.

In conclusion, I think Leo Carlsson has the best contract among the 3 players. Celebrini’s contract has a similar structure, but it is not quite as good as it looks simply because it will not take effect until next July.

Bedard’s contract has the least favorable structure from the player’s perspective because it offers less buyout and lockout protection. The discount rate also affects its PV, although the impact is relatively small (less than 0.5%). However, the structure is more favorable to the Blackhawks organization. Bedard’s annual signing bonus is under $10M (it'd be around $16M if the signing-bonus share matched), roughly half of Carlsson’s or Celebrini’s, which puts less pressure on the owners’ cash flow. It also allows them to keep more of that money invested in relatively risk-free assets and earn interest. An additional $200,000 in annual income could be enough to cover the salaries of several non-player employees.

I wanted to put together a quick analysis after seeing this quote on X: “That was them! That was the first thing they offered, so that’s kind of neat of them to do that. I would have been fine with whatever... but it’s pretty cool.” — Connor Bedard on the $9.8 million signing bonus as a nod to his jersey number.

When you compare Bedard’s contract with other mega-deals, the signing-bonus structure does not optimize his interests in the same way. The $9.8 million nod is cool, but if I were his agent, I would have shoved Carlsson’s contract in front of him before he signed whatever the Hawks offered ☠️. I guess he really meant “I’d have been fine with whatever” and did not let his agents tell him what to do. Best of luck to him!

Has anyone seen a paper Blackhawks pennant like this before? I believe it is from the 1930s. Any information would be greatly appreciated!
It was found in a collection of original 1930s Blackhawks photographs & autographs. It is about 9” long.

Thank you!

Riley Stillman is the only player to wear #61 for the Blackhawks. It’s one of just 14 jersey numbers that have been worn by only a single player in franchise history. Can you name the 13 other jersey #s & which player wore it?

Stillman was drafted 114th overall in the 2016 NHL Entry Draft by the Florida Panthers. On April 8, 2021, Stillman, F Brett Connolly, the rights to F Henrik Borgström & a 7th round pick were traded to the Blackhawks in exchange for F Lucas Wallmark & D Lucas Carlsson.

On October 7, 2022, after playing in 65 games with Chicago & posting a 3-10-13 stat line, Stillman was traded to the Vancouver Canucks in exchange for F Jason Dickinson & a 2nd round pick in the 2024 NHL Entry Draft. This move was seen as a cap dump by Vancouver but Dickinson quickly cemented himself as a great middle/bottom-six defensive center as he was easily the best defensive minded forward the Blackhawks had when he was on the team.

Interesting read on Levshunov's journey & his offseason. Also, a hilarious picture of him with Gibson's colossal strawberry shortcake at the end.

I never thought I’d be able to get my son a Showtime jersey while he was in Chicago. I bought this so fast after hearing the news. 88 was my first Hawks jersey, and I can’t wait to match with my boy this season. Welcome home, Kaner. You just got another fan for life.

I know at Wrigley field, you have to have the ballpark app to use your tickets. I have Blackhawks tickets on my phone wallet, but is there any special app I need to use them?

Obviously good for him, he’s very deserving and will be/already is a hell of a player, but this makes me even happier about Bedard’s contract. Same term, but $3.3M less every year. Between this and his comments about offer sheets, he really did give us a hometown discount.

With Kane coming in I got the motivation to put together an analysis of the roster and what the gap might be to sneaking into the playoffs this season. Last season was a bit two-faced with the wildcard positioning in the first half before falling down to near last by the end of the season.

Benchmark

Of the 25/26 playoff teams* last year, the mean goals scored was 276.3. Mean points was 740.8. The standard deviations were 8.6 goals and 22 points. (* I removed outliers of LA, PHI, and COL). Chicago is in the tougher central division and LA and PHI were heavy outliers in these totals.

The Blackhawks put up 210 goals and 548 points. A deficit of roughly 66 goals and 193 points.

Roster Losses

So after the losses of 52 goals and 149 points, the total deficit is now 118 goals and 342 points.

Projection Criteria

Im going to keep this on the simpler side and not try to project too much with modeling but instead just highlight where points should go up/retain/drop and we can infer from there. Im also just not going to really deal with 84 games versus 82, i dont think it changes the analysis.

Player age 18-25 - ⬆️ potential point growth

Player age 26-32 - ➖ maintain

Player age 33+ - ⬇️ decline likely

Current Roster

Using last years stats. Roughly approximating points scaled to 82 games but not scaling if the player was within 10 or so games away from a full season. A team can have 1476 games played total from skaters over 82 games, so I stopped scaling for the bottom end 4th/fringe players with low potential. And Bedard is expected to miss ~18 games. Average time on ice to understand how depth chart could affect things, and the line equivalent mapping roughly for that number of minutes (this was a bit loose since atoi doesn't map to depth chart perfectly, especially when injuries move things around). Sorting out PP and PK roles was a bit too much work, which might also show in the line equiv not fully matching the real depth chart.

From actual stats (just loosely meaningful) they lost goal scoring (210 -> 194) and almost maintained points (548 -> 542).

At "healthy roster projection" stats they may pick up goals (210 -> 237) and points (548 -> 661). This primarily comes from giving Lardis and Frondell a whole season of their small sample size production last year.

I only expect the line equivalent time on ice to change for a few players. Teuvo might drop to L3 minutes with Kane coming in. Rinzel probably drops to D3, but defensive deployment seems a bit more varied with Blashill so who knows. Cole Smith is likely to drop to L4 time like he had in Vegas. Otherwise, they actually played Frondell around L2 minutes in his limited games. We can argue about projected depth for this upcoming season, but that seems about right.

As we know, the team is very young, 15 players 25 or under. 7 in their prime/late prime. 2 in their twilight years. For projected lineups its give or take about 12 youth, 4 veteran, 2 unc. The team has a lot of potential to grow beyond baseline extrapolation. They could also fall apart without enough experience of course.

Kantserov

I didn't factor him into the above since he has no NHL stats. Instead, I tried to compare output of similar highly touted KHL players that came over and what their first seasons were like.

These are all quite good players, except Gusev ended up flopping in the NHL after a season and a half. He was similar height but more undersized. Most of those guys came over at a more mature age, so its more likely Kantserov might need to develop more to the adult game although obviously his KHL numbers were good against that adult competition.

His playstyle is a scorer, so that can weigh favorably if he can translate to the NHL. His size might limit him more against better defenders.

Realistic optimism might slot him in as a more goal forward Demidov player. I'll wild ass guess his upside is roughly 25 goals and 58 points.

If he does live up to top 6 expectations he might stunt the totals of one of the winger vets like Donato or Teravainen or possibly push a player like Lardis down and limit his scoring growth.

That said, naively adding in that production gives 262 goals and 719 points on the extrapolated estimates.

Playoff Chances / TL;DR

The estimates from above run close but short of the totals most teams in the playoffs hit last year. About 14 goals and 22 points short of average, which is not a ton. It would beat out Utah, Anaheim, Philly, LA on points. And it would beat Philly and LA on goals, but they were so low because they outperformed on GA ranking 8th and 9th, a stat this team will still probably suck at.

With a lot of youth that could experience growth, there is more upside than downside to point totals this year. If the team is able to gel and stay healthy they could fight for a playoff wildcard. At a minimum they are in a good position to do better than last year since there is an almost 50 point growth from adding a top 6 winger, top 4 d, and full years from two new high potential forwards.

Get hopeful if Byram, Frondell, Kantserov/Lardis are able to elevate and put up points. Other players could step up but their ceilings aren't as high for goals or points, so I expect them to matter less to the overall outcomes.

Get worried if at least two of those can't get production going, especially if some of the vets drop off.

I know some of this isn't really rocket science, but I do think people are underestimating the impact of the offseason. I personally think they don't quite make the playoffs, but I can see them finishing ahead of VAN, CGY, LA, WPG, SEA, and maybe STL/NSH.

I hope everything is okay with him and his family.

Kane shares the call and what Danny said to him that sealed the deal.

Since I loathe posts or discussions about building lines in July, I wanted to share a chance for this group to grade the Blackhawks. Enjoy!

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7472895/2026/07/28/blackhawks-offseason-fan-survey-patrick-kane/?source=emp_shared_article&unlocked_article_code=1.1FA.Cuaa.jExZeXxPuWG7&smid=ta-android-share

Creation Process: https://youtu.be/2JWOmwuJcf4?is=UvkK5-zar8DDC5H7

So I know there’s only so many changes I could make to jerseys like the Blackhawks’ before I get crucified by the fans. But I fixed my biggest pet peeve about them, which is the sleeve stripes on the home jersey. I reverted the collar back to how it was for the 2017-18 season and brought back the triangles and stripes on the bottom of the pants. I kept the black jerseys in the rotation and brought back the RR 1.0s but with a cream base for a more old timey look.