The Chicago Blackhawks have been relatively quiet this offseason.
Aside from acquiring Sam Lafferty and Andre Burakovsky, the Blackhawks have mostly signed a few prospects and bought out the contract of TJ Brodie. Arguably, the biggest transaction of their modest offseason has been the extending of Arvid Soderblom.
Elliotte Friedman reports that the Blackhawks and Soderblom have avoided arbitration with a new contract. The extension will be a two-year deal worth $2.75 million per season.
Arvid Soderblom & Blackhawks Avoid Arbitration
Salary arbitration is not an easy process for the player or the organization. More often than not, it’s used as a negotiation tactic to speed up the process of agreeing on a new contract extension.
Eleven players elected for salary arbitration: Kaapo Kakko, Morgan Barron, Maksim Tsyplakov, Dylan Samberg, Conor Timmins, Nicholas Robertson, Jayden Struble, Gabriel Vilardi, Lukas Dostal, Drew Helleson, and Soderblom. Of those 11, seven have settled on new contracts before reaching the date of the arbitration hearing.
Soderblom and the Blackhawks were scheduled to have their hearing for Monday, July 28th. Samberg, Timmins, Robertson, and Struble are the four remaining players who are heading to their arbitration hearings.
Blackhawks Have Solid Tandem Entering New Season
With this new signing, the Blackhawks will enter the 2025-26 season with Spencer Knight, Laurent Brossoit, and Soderblom. Brossoit will presumably be the third string goalie, should he be healthy for the start of the season.
Knight was traded to the team during the season and played excellent. The 24-year old goalie played 15 games for the Blackhawks in 2024-25. He sported a 5-8-2 record to go along with a 3.18 goals against average (GAA), and an .896 save percentage (SV%). Considering that the Blackhawks allowed the second-most goals against among the 32 NHL teams, these numbers are pretty good.
Soderblom, on the other hand, played 36 games for the Blackhawks. The 25-year-old Swedish netminder put together a 10-18-7 record. Additionally, he had a 3.18 GAA and a .898 SV%.
New Contract Is Good Value For Blackhawks
The Soderblom is an interesting contract to observe and compare to a few others at the same price point. Frederik Andersen, Semyon Varlamov, and Stuart Skinner all make about the same amount per season.
Andersen played 22 games for the Carolina Hurricanes, posting a 13-8-1 record in the regular season. The 35-year-old veteran had an impressive 2.50 GAA, a .899 SV%, and one shutout. He has recently struggled to be healthy enough during the regular season, which is the reason he only played 22 games.
However, the Hurricanes don’t spend a lot of money on their goaltenders. Andersen and Pyotr Kochetkov make $4.75 million combined, which is only $250,000 more than Knight’s contract.
Varlamov was between the pipes for the New York Islanders for 10 games. The 37-year-old Russian goalie had a 3-4-3 record, a 2.89 GAA, and a .889 SV%. His price tag seems steeper considering the he only played 10 games during the season.
Finally, Skinner was part of the duo that led the Edmonton Oilers to their second consecutive Stanley Cup Final appearance. The 26-year-old Edmonton-native recorded a 26-18-4 record, a 2.81 GAA, a .896 SV%, and three shutouts. His GAA is comparable to Varlamov while his SV% is a shade less than Andersen.
Soderblom’s GAA is higher than all three of these other goalies, while his SV% is lower than Andersen, but higher than both Varlamov and Skinner.
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