The Blackhawks continued a busy summer of prospect signings with the addition of former Notre Dame forward Cam Morrison on Tuesday.
Morrison’s two-year contract will carry a $925,000 cap hit, the maximum allowed for entry-level deals, through 2023.
Morrison, who will turn 22 on Aug. 27, scored 27 points in 37 games in his senior season with the Fighting Irish this past year, leading the team with 13 goals.
He was a second-round pick of the Avalanche in 2016, but the Avs’ draft rights expired Saturday. It’s unclear if the Avs decided not to sign him or if Morrison declined an offer to pursue free agency.
The Toronto area native is a power forward with a big frame — 6-foot-2, 201 pounds — who projects as a bottom-six player at the NHL level.
He’ll likely start the 2020-21 season with the AHL’s Rockford IceHogs, although after a full four years at the college level, he’s closer to NHL-ready than many newly signed prospects.
Morrison’s stock was higher at the start of college, when he scored 24 points in 40 games as a freshman, but his production never really took off. He eventually tallied 95 points over 149 career regular appearances and 15 points in 20 career postseason appearances.
Included in those postseason points were some crucial ones, though. Morrison scored Notre Dame’s lone goal in the 2017 Frozen Four at the United Center, the overtime winner in the 2018 Big Ten championship game and the eventual game-winner in the 2019 Big Ten championship game.
In February, The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler ranked Morrison the Avs’ 14th-best prospect and gave a fair description of his game.
“Morrison plays a powerful, net-driven game, making most of his plays around the net,” Wheeler wrote. “He’s not a dynamic offensive player but he’s a good enough skater, he makes smart decisions with the puck and he’s effective on the cycle. He’s not going to put up big numbers at the NHL level but it’s not hard to imagine him becoming a dominant AHL player who can fill in as depth option.”
Hawks general manager Stan Bowman has now signed a quite sizable handful of prospects this summer: Morrison, Denver defenseman Ian Mitchell, Wisconsin defenseman Wyatt Kalynuk, Penn State forward Evan Barratt, Swiss forward Pius Suter, Russian forward Andrei Altybarmakyan and Czech forwards Michal Teply and Matej Chalupa.
Those signings not only add a lot of depth and talent to the Hawks’ prospect pipeline, but also imply significant overhaul of the IceHogs’ roster may be imminent. Anton Wedin and Jacob Nilsson already left for Europe, and Alexandre Fortin, Joseph Cramarossa, Joni Tuulola, Ian McCoshen and T.J. Brennan are all free agents.
