The Blackhawks took just half an hour to make a move in the NHL’s free agency madness Monday, signing former Sharks and Golden Knights forward Ryan Carpenter to a three-year contract.
The contract will carry a cap hit of just $1 million — a sharp contrast to some of the excessive deals thrown around elsewhere.
Carpenter is a 28-year-old center entering his third full NHL season, emerging as an undrafted free agent in San Jose’s system before really breaking through in the past two years in Vegas.
The Florida native appeared in 68 games last season, more than doubling his previous career high, and scored 18 points — five goals, 13 assists — to go along with impressive analytics and a solid 52.6 faceoff winning percentage.
Just how impressive were those analytics? Among all NHL players with at least 500 minutes played, Carpenter ranked seventh in the league with a 57.9 Corsi (shot attempts for) percentage. He graded especially well in several defensive aspects, such as limiting shot attempts in the low slot and exiting the defensive zone with possession.
In Chicago, Carpenter will compete for the fourth-line center role and add versatile depth to the bottom six, which was considered the Hawks’ biggest area of need entering July.
Carpenter’s aforementioned faceoff skills and decent penalty-killing experience were exactly what GM Stan Bowman was looking for.
