BOSTON — The Blackhawks‘ distribution of ice time in their season opener Tuesday against the Panthers was eye-catching.
Rookie Sam Rinzel played a whopping 25:18 — in just his 10th career NHL game — while the other five defensemen each logged between 16 and 19 minutes.
For coach Jeff Blashill, once he reviewed the stats, it was eye-catching in an alarming way. During his last three years as a Lightning assistant, he wasn’t even playing Victor Hedman that much.
“That’s too many minutes for [Sam], to be honest with you,” Blashill said Wednesday. “That’s on us as a staff. … We’ve got to dial that back. We lost those minutes a little bit.”
It actually didn’t mark a career high for Rinzel, who played 26:52 in the Hawks’ memorable shootout win in Montreal back in April, but it was probably excessive for the very first game of the new season.
Considering he’s slotted on the top pairing, the top power-play unit and the second penalty-kill unit, it would’ve taken a conscious effort by Hawks coaches to keep his ice time from ballooning. In what was also their very first game working together, that oversight evidently slipped through the cracks.
Rinzel’s play suffered as a result, too. It was his worst game as a pro.
He lost a netfront battle leading to the Panthers’ first goal, didn’t maintain a tight gap at the blue line before losing coverage down low on the Panthers’ second goal, got beat wide for another prime scoring chance late in the second period and turned the puck over on numerous attempted breakouts.
“[It was] not as I like it,” Rinzel said. “Not to my standards. Definitely not a good game.”
Carter Verhaeghe gets in on the fun with a nice snipe in close! pic.twitter.com/L3seyYOXvG
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) October 7, 2025
Rinzel and the Hawks can — and should — mentally flush that away as just one game out of 82, though. The team will need him to handle a big workload as their No. 1 defenseman all season long, albeit not quite a 25-minutes-per-night workload.
That’s a rare opportunity for a 21-year-old fresh out of college, but it’s an opportunity earned because of his talent and track record — both at Minnesota and with the Hawks last spring. It’s also an opportunity he relishes.
“When I was younger, I had to kind of battle to make teams,” Rinzel said. “I definitely went through hardships throughout my life in the game of hockey. It [shaped] the player I am today: wanting the puck, wanting to make plays. When I’m at my best, that’s how I am.
“[I’ve kept that] ‘hunger mentality.’ Wanting it every day is an important thing. It drives that competitiveness in you to keep going.”
The return of Alex Vlasic, who’s expected to make his season debut Thursday against the Bruins, should help Rinzel considerably. Vlasic’s game-to-game consistency, defensive stoutness and 179 games of NHL experience — at just 24 years old himself — make him a steadying presence.
Matt Grzelcyk, who skated alongside Rinzel on Tuesday, now moves down to a more appropriate role on the third pairing with Connor Murphy.
Months of coaching from Blashill and Anders Sorensen, now the Hawks assistant overseeing the defense, should help Rinzel, too.
“What makes [Sam] special and elite is his ability to make plays with the puck,” Blashill said. “He just has to — and I believe he will — have the confidence to take the extra second and make the right play. Sometimes the right play is to put it into space, but a lot of times for him, the right play is going to be to find a guy on the tape.
“When you play college, you have a little more time, and the physical confrontation is a little easier to handle. … It’s a balance of having that poise and delivering that puck at the right time. I think he’ll continue to grow as a player throughout the course of the year.”