While Dan Carcillo is on the shelf for the rest of the season with a knee injury, that’s given him plenty of time to talk about the future with the Chicago Blackhawks. With all that time on his hands, he was able to nail down a two-year contract extension with the team to remain in Chicago.
At 26-years-old, Carcillo is just hitting his stride as a player in the league and he was just starting to get comfortable with the Blackhawks when he hurt his knee back in January. Through 28 games with the Hawks this year, Carcillo put up two goals, nine assists, and 82 penalty minutes. His job is to be tough and get under the opponents’ skin and he’s very good at doing that.
With all the talk that the Blackhawks are still lacking some toughness this year, his presence has apparently been missed this year. Ever since Carcillo went down with his ACL injury, Chicago has gone 13-14-4 without him. Coincidence or not, his presence made things a bit easier on his teammates.
Update (11:34 a.m. ET): Renaud Lavoie of RDS reports that Carcillo’s deal comes with a $825,000 cap hit, a total of $1.65 million for the deal.