Two months after he surely thought he’d make his NHL debut, Brandon Hagel may finally get in a game for the Blackhawks this week.
Hagel was recalled on emergency basis from the AHL on Monday after Drake Caggiula’s Sunday fight against Vince Dunn injured Caggiula’s wrist, knocking the Hawks down to just 11 healthy forwards.
Unless Caggiula recovers quickly — in time for Wednesday’s game against the Sharks — Hagel will enter the lineup for the first time.
If so, it will be an inspiring and gratifying end to Hagel’s tumultuous journey to this point.
He was drafted by the Sabres in June 2016, then left unsigned by the Sabres in June 2018. Hagel remained with his junior team in Red Deer, Alberta, for a rare fourth season come 2018-19, and exploded from a 59-point to a 102-point player there; the Hawks noticed early on and signed him to an entry-level deal in late October.
But for those months in between June and October, with no NHL interest in sight, Hagel considered a future without hockey.
“It’s definitely a whirlwind,” he said in Toronto in January. “About a year ago, I was signing up for classes, just in case I had to go to school. But now I’m here, less than a year from when I signed. It’s been crazy ups and downs in my career, but I finally got here and I just got to roll with it.”
Hagel said he hadn’t gone as far as picking out a college, but statistics don’t favor 20-year-olds entering their fourth junior season eventually making it in professional hockey; he was wise to prepare for alternatives.
And Hagel’s whirlwind wasn’t done even when giving that quote. The Hawks recalled him on Jan. 16, sent him down on Jan. 19, recalled him on Jan. 20, sent him down Jan. 21, then recalled and sent down within a few hours on Feb. 29. He was brought up each time solely to be the 13th forward for road games, his presence needed only just-in-case.
Meanwhile, the scrappy wing continued to produce in his rookie season with the IceHogs, entering this week with a team-best 19 goals — in addition to 12 assists — in 59 games.
“He brings something similar to [Matthew] Highmore in just his work ethic,” Hawks coach Jeremy Colliton said in January. “He’s a great skater, he wins races, he plays with a little edge... He’s got a little bit of rat in him, and we like that.”
Given that this newest call-up is to become the Hawks’ temporary 12th — not 13th — forward means Hagel’s NHL breakthrough is likely about to happen. While that would be a gratifying end to his journey to the NHL, it’d also be an exciting beginning to a hopefully impactful career.
It also means the Hawks were able to designate this as an emergency call-up, thus not expending one of their two remaining standard call-ups this season.
That could come in handy if the Hawks try to get some of their other promising AHL prospects their first NHL opportunities in the remaining 13 games of this now-lost season.
Philipp Kurashev, a dynamic young center ranked No. 2 in the Sun-Times’ midseason prospect rankings, is healthy again after a two-month injury absence and could be next in line behind Hagel. Defenseman Nicolas Beaudin and grinding winger MacKenzie Entwistle may also be considered.
Former presumptive backup-to-be Collin Delia has also probably earned a late-season NHL stint, considering the Hawks’ apparent disinterest in actually playing Malcolm Subban. Delia boasts a .927 save percentage over his last 24 AHL starts.
