{"id":43212,"date":"2025-07-06T11:14:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-06T11:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/43212\/"},"modified":"2025-07-06T11:14:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-06T11:14:10","slug":"chicago-blackhawks-prospect-nick-lardis-turning-pro-despite-setback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/43212\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Blackhawks prospect Nick Lardis turning pro despite setback"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nick Lardis\u00a0claims\u00a0he couldn\u2019t remember how many hat tricks he had during his monster 71-goal season for the Ontario Hockey League\u2019s Brantford Bulldogs.<\/p>\n

Seven?<\/p>\n

\u201cI think seven and maybe two in the playoffs,\u201d the Chicago Blackhawks forward prospect correctly recalled to reporters at Fifth Third Arena on the final day of development camp for 2024 and \u201925 draft picks<\/a>. \u201cSo that was good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just good?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was unreal,\u201d Bulldogs teammate Parker Holmes said of Lardis\u2019 71 goals and 46 assists in 65 regular-season games \u2014 plus 11 goals and four assists in seven playoff games. \u201cIt seemed like everything he touched went in the net every game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marek Vanacker, another Bulldogs teammate, called Lardis\u2019 season \u201cphenomenal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m super proud of him,\u201d\u00a0 Vanacker said. \u201cHe did awesome. I don\u2019t doubt that he\u2019s going to continue doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lardis seemed more geeked about reaching new heights in other ways: \u201cI measured at 6 feet, something like that, so I finally got there, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lardis, Holmes and Vanacker all happen to be Hawks forward prospects as well, and they got to share time together during the camp in Chicago.<\/p>\n

Holmes was drafted in the fourth round last week<\/a>, Vanacker in the first round last year and Lardis in the third round in 2023.<\/p>\n

Holmes and Vanacker will return to Brantford this fall, but Lardis and the Hawks confirmed he\u2019s turning pro.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhich pro team (the Hawks or the AHL\u2019s Rockford IceHogs) is going to be up to him in September,\u201d assistant general manager of player development Mark Eaton said.<\/p>\n

\"ParkerParker Holmes participates in media availability for Blackhawks draft picks Monday, June 30, 2025, at Fifth Third Arena. (Terrence Antonio James\/Chicago Tribune)
\n\"MarekMarek Vanacker is selected by the Blackhawks with the 27th pick during the first round of the 2024 NHL draft at Sphere in Las Vegas. (Bruce Bennett\/Getty Images)
\n\"NickNick Lardis celebrates after being selected with the 67th pick in the 2023 NHL draft by the Blackhawks at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tenn. (Bruce Bennett\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Lardis said he plans to \u201cjust stay motivated and try to make the team, and whatever happens, happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

What happened in April was the most ill-timed setback to Lardis\u2019 aspirations. He suffered a playoff-ending leg injury April 13 \u2014 after recording a hat trick against the Oshawa Generals.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously it sucks what happened in the moment, during the year, kind of at a peak time with your team in the playoffs,\u201d he said, \u201cbut everything\u2019s healed up really well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lardis hasn\u2019t tested it in battle drills \u2014 prospects stayed off the ice<\/a> during development camp \u2014 \u201cbut I feel 100%,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Over the rest of the summer and heading into training camp in September, he\u2019ll continue with drills, including \u201cworking on my wall work, whether it\u2019s in the D-zone, offensive zone,\u201d as well as building up his \u201cstrength going into pro hockey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through it all, the tight-knit Brantford bunch continue to support each other.<\/p>\n

Vanacker said Lardis is \u201ca special guy and teammates love him. He\u2019s super funny and awesome to be around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lardis was a valuable resource for the Hawks when they were considering drafting Vanacker and Holmes, as was Vanacker when they asked him about Holmes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you go through these character assessments, we were fortunate to have Nick Lardis there (in Brantford) and Marek Vanacker,\u201d amateur scouting director Mike Doneghey said. \u201cSo when I called them and talked to them, they endorsed (Holmes). They said, \u2018Yeah, this kid\u2019s not fake tough.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Holmes smiled at that assessment: \u201cI don\u2019t know, I\u2019m not afraid to drop the gloves if I need to, but I only really do it if I need to protect a teammate or something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of Vanacker, Holmes said: \u201cOh, he\u2019s a dog on a bone. Just never gives up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vanacker watched the draft waiting for Holmes to hear his name called.<\/p>\n

\u201cI stepped away for a second not even watching the TV, and all of a sudden my mom said that he got drafted,\u201d Vanacker said. \u201cBut she didn\u2019t say Chicago, so I didn\u2019t know for sure. And I looked and he said Chicago and I was like, \u2018That\u2019s awesome!\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI sent him a text and called him right away. He was pretty pumped and excited, so pretty special to have me, Lardis and Holmes here \u2019cause we\u2019re all on the same team, so that\u2019s pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nick Lardis\u00a0claims\u00a0he couldn\u2019t remember how many hat tricks he had during his monster 71-goal season for the Ontario…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":43213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[24363,24364,33870,960,291,5386,1818,33872,33871,33873],"class_list":{"0":"post-43212","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-blackhawks-development-camp","9":"tag-blackhawks-rookie-camp","10":"tag-brantford-bulldogs","11":"tag-chicago","12":"tag-chicago-blackhawks","13":"tag-il","14":"tag-illinois","15":"tag-marek-vanacker","16":"tag-nick-lardis","17":"tag-parker-holmes"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114806002081467749","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43212","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=43212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}