Blackhawks’ Kirby Dach unlikely to debut vs. Sharks as frustrating wait drags on

Kirby Dach’s injury has steadily grown into the long-term issue that the Blackhawks once thought they’d escaped.

Thursday’s home opener against the Sharks will mark a month since Dach was injured in the final game of the Traverse City prospects tournament.

The third overall pick resumed practicing during the Hawks’ Europe trip, but is still almost certainly not going to make his NHL debut Thursday. It’s unclear exactly when he will.

“We did practice [over there, but] it wasn’t the high intensity, at least all the days, that we would like to get him back up to speed,” coach Jeremy Colliton said Monday, after the Hawks’ first practice back in Chicago. “We want to give him the best opportunity to step right in and help us. I don’t think he’ll be playing.”

The wait has been frustrating for everyone in the organization, but Dach most of all.

He clearly didn’t initially realize the hard hit in the prospects game had concussed him. He came back out in his trademark gray suit to watch the second period, and Hawks executive Mark Bernard said after the game that holding him and the other three injured prospects out was largely precautionary.

“We’re very glad that none of them are injuries that are going to keep them out long term,” Bernard added at the time.

And yet, it has become long term, after day after day of uncertainty — the inevitable uncertainty of head injuries.

Three days after that fateful Hawks-Wild prospects contest, Dach didn’t skate at the first practice of NHL training camp, and general manager Stan Bowman said his recovery “could be a day or two, it could be longer.”

It’s been 24 days now. And still no full breakthrough.

“You don’t really want to be sitting out this long and be hurt,” Dach said. “But at the same time, it’s an uncontrollable. I’ve just got to do what I can do get back in the lineup.”

After Thursday, the regular season continues full steam with home games Saturday against the Jets and Monday against the Oilers.

The odds seem decent that the 18-year-old center returns sometime during this seven-game homestand, but there are no preseason exhibitions to ease him into NHL action. And he can’t be assigned to the AHL because of an NHL agreement with Canadian junior leagues (the uncertainty about whether he’ll spend the full 2019-20 season with the Hawks or back in Saskatoon is another issue altogether).

Beyond the obvious concussion concern, Colliton also sounded worried Monday about Dach’s regular season readiness.

“It’s hard for me,” the coach said. “Training camp would have been a perfect opportunity for him to slowly ramp up and get used to the level that he’s going to need to be at to help us. So we’re just trying to make the best of it, as far as the practice reps but also the reps after practice, doing 1-on-1s, doing battles and challenging him defensively.”

Patrick Kane, for one, said Dach’s size and physical maturity will probably help make the jump easier than “other guys would at that age.” But Kane knows he’s no doctor.

There are so many layers of complexity to this situation, so many factors to consider — most of which are frighteningly unclear — that the jigsaw hardly has any more pieces placed than it did a month ago. Compared to the thrill of the draft lottery leap and the satisfaction of draft night, this is basically a worst-case scenario.

At least Dach thinks he’s doing better. There is that.

“I feel pretty good,” he said. “It’s obviously not my decision to say if I want to be out there... but it’s my job to force the hand of the coaching staff.”