Blackhawks dodge catastrophe after Kirby Dach, Adam Boqvist and 2 other prospects suffer minor injuries

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — The sighs of relief all but blew over the arena Tuesday when Mark Bernard, who oversees the Hawks’ minor-league operations, uttered four crucial words: “They’re all minor injuries.”

Shortly before, the Hawks seemed at risk for a disaster — if not four disasters — when prospects Kirby Dach, Adam Boqvist, Philipp Kurashev and Mikael Hakkarainen all left the final game of the 2019 NHL Prospect Tournament.

Yet all four turned out to be mostly fine. They were held out for the rest of the game — which the Hawks won 6-1 over the Wild — largely for precautionary reasons. Bernard said all four are likely to be ready for the start of training camp Friday, although they’ll be reassessed upon returning to Chicago.

“This is a tournament you want the top prospects playing in, and you don’t want to see injuries happen to anybody, especially when it’s your own prospect,” Bernard said. “We’re very glad that none of them are injuries that are going to keep them out long-term.”

Dach, the third overall pick in this year’s draft, hurt his left shoulder nine minutes in when Wild free-agent invitee Darian Pilon boarded him behind the net. Dach went to the locker room with his arm hanging limp but emerged in a suit, chewing gum and unperturbed, during the second period.

Boqvist, Kurashev and Hakkarai-nen each left in swift, consecutive fashion early in the second period. Kurashev’s incident was the most concerning, as he was boarded from behind on a play that resulted in an ejection for the Wild’s Damien Giroux. He lay on the ice in a fetal position for a solid minute before being helped to the locker room. Bernard said his injuries were partly upper-body, partly lower-body.

Hakkarainen lost several teeth from a high stick, while Boqvist was merely bruised in an unfortunate collision.

“[Boqvist] just went into the boards the wrong way,” Bernard said. “It wasn’t a bad hit or anything — kind of bruised himself up top in his chest.”

The Hawks escaped Traverse City largely unscathed — both in terms of health and tournament results — as they salvaged a 2-2-0 record with the decisive victory. But Tuesday’s game easily could have ended differently.

No one criticized the Wild’s actions too severely afterward, and none of the injured prospects was made available to the media. But the Hawks’ anger was clear on the ice. Tournament invite Riley McKay, a teammate of Dach in Saskatoon, fought Drake Pilon, Darian’s brother, shortly after the hit on Dach. Later, referees had to keep the teams apart while they were skating to their locker rooms for the second intermission.

“[Drake Pilon] actually came at me, so, yeah,” McKay said. “I was just trying to stick up for my teammate, like I always would.”

Rockford IceHogs coach Derek King, who had only a 14-player bench for half the game, landed one parting shot.

“They’re not going to go out there and do the whole ’70s Philadelphia Flyers thing, but [the Hawks] stuck together, which was good to see,” he said. “Anytime somebody got bumped, it was always five guys surrounding them or helping each other out. . . . [The Wild] played a physical game, and that’s clearly not our game. We try to play more of a skill game, and it kind of showed on the scoreboard, right?”