Blackhawks Call Up van Reimsdyk
The Chicago Blackhawks are down two games to one against the Anaheim Ducks in the NHL’s western conference finals. It looks like they want to add some assistance on the blue line as they called up defenseman Trevor van Reimsdyk from the American Hockey League on Friday.
Its no secret the Blackhawks have struggled on defense at times this post season. Van Reimsdyk has seen some time with Chicago where he has played well, but was unfortunately injured in late November. He injured his knee, before rehabbing in the AHL with Rockford, where he injured his wrist and was not expected to be ready to play again until June.
Head coach Joel Quenneville said Van Reimsdyk has not been cleared to play in game four of the series against Chicago. He did, however, say that the series has not yet been ruled out for the 23 year old defenseman. “We’ll see” was the exact quote from the Hawks coach.
Van Reimsdyk had surgery on the wrist on April 7th, and is slightly ahead of schedule to be considered to play yet.
The timeline to get him on the ice was his first day today.” Quenneville said to ESPN Chicago. “He’s been ready. He’s cleared to participate. He was out there doing one-on-one drills. We’ll see how he is.
“Today is first day, so I don’t anticipate him being in tomorrow. He’ll need a few days out here, and we’ll see get an evaluation and go from there.”
The defenseman signed with the Blackhawks as a free agent after three years playing with the University of New Hampshire Wildcats in 2014.
“We’ll see,” the defenseman said to the Chicago sun Times. “I haven’t looked too far down the road here. Just taking it step by step. It feels good to be back on the premises here and being around skating. It was fun and I’m going to take it day-by-day and see how everything responds and go from there. ”
“It’s getting there,” he said. “It’s still a process, still a little work to be done. But it’s a fun challenge to take on every day and kind of a 24-hour thing taking care of it, doing all the right things. Just getting back to healthy as quickly as I can.”
In his time with Chicago this season, Van Reimsdyk had one assist. Chicago hosts game fourwhere they hope to tie things at two games a piece before heading back to Anaheim.