Rumors about general manager Kyle Davidson signing a veteran defenseman have swirled among the beat reporters<\/a>. The Hawks\u2019 blueline features a plethora of youth, with Connor Murphy the only player who has significant playing experience under his belt. 24-year-old Alex Vlasic is next with 179 games played.<\/p>\n Who is Matt Grzelcyk?<\/p>\n Grzelcyk played 527 NHL games, spending eight seasons with the Boston Bruins and one in Pittsburgh, where he scored his career high of 40 points. Last season was an anomaly as he scored 11 points the year prior, and his previous high was 26 points. His three-year percentile ranking (the above Evolving Hockey player card) has Grzelcyk ranked pretty low in defense and offense. And let\u2019s remember, this is a PTO. <\/p>\n Should Grzelcyk make the team, he\u2019ll likely be a depth defenseman and nothing more.<\/p>\n My worry?<\/p>\n Well, we all know how NHL coaches favor veteran players. Considering Grzelcyk\u2019s skillset leans offense, it is possible that he looks okay (boy, am I using that term loosely) and ends up eating minutes from our young defensemen. Young defensemen make mistakes. But I\u2019m fine with the current layout of the Blackhawks blueline as is. I also think that Artyom Levshunov shouldn\u2019t spend time in Rockford to start the season\u2014preseason aside. <\/p>\n More Sports News<\/p>\n \t .wp-block-group__inner-container:has(> .embla), \t\tsvg { It\u2019s only a tiny worry on the scale of things that matter. It\u2019s only a PTO, after all.<\/p>\n Subscribe to\u00a0On Tap Sports Net on YouTube<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Four Feathers Podcast<\/a>\u00a0for more Chicago Blackhawks content, updates, and hot takes!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matt Grzelcyk joins the Chicago Blackhawks on a PTO. Explore his career and the potential impact on the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":231872,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,291,5386,1818],"class_list":{"0":"post-231871","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-chicago-blackhawks","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-illinois"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115215170980268284","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Matt](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Matt-Grzelyck-Evolving-Hockey-Data-400xauto.webp.webp\")
Matt Grzelcyk\u2019s Evolving Hockey card: Numbers in the box (Offense, Defense, and Overall) are percentile rankings among all NHL defenseman across three years. <\/p>\n
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