Blackhawks' Anton Frondell gets himself going after line tweak, power-play promotion

BOSTON — The Blackhawks finally got rookie forward Anton Frondell going Saturday, even without substantially changing his role.

Or perhaps Frondell got himself going. Either way, the 19-year-old Swede was a major standout in the Hawks' 5-4 overtime loss to the Bruins.

He attempted a whopping 13 shots, getting nine on goal and two in the goal. That snapped his six-game point drought, and he now has four two-point games this season — accounting for all eight of his points.

He also made some savvy defensive plays to win puck battles and relieve pressure. He looked like the best player on the ice during most of his shifts.

"He's going to be a heck of a player for a long time in this league," Andrew Mangiapane said. "He's good in all three zones. He knows where to be. And he's supporting everywhere, and that's what you want in a center."

Coach Jeff Blashill, who acknowledged Frondell had a "great game," didn't promote Frondell onto Connor Bedard's line the way I posited he should. But he did slightly tweak Frondell's regular line with Tyler Bertuzzi by inserting Mangiapane onto the right wing.

Mangiapane's speed did seem helpful to the other two, particularly on the forecheck. He should probably stick in the lineup over Teuvo Teravainen.

Power change

Frondell's bigger promotion came on the power play, which contributed to his ice time rocketing up from a season-low 11:44 on Thursday to 19:15 on Saturday.

He slid back into his one-timer spot on the top unit's right flank, where he didn't have much success the first six games of the season before getting bumped to the second unit.

And that's how he scored his first goal. Connor Bedard — who took over the quarterbacking job from Teravainen with Bowen Byram still injured — passed to Patrick Kane down low, and Kane found a seam through the Bruins' penalty kill to set up a Frondell one-timer.

"With [Bedard quarterbacking], you take one of your better scorers away from the net, but he’s also really good up top," Blashill said. "When Frondell gets going on that flank, he seemed more comfortable today than he did earlier in the year. He’s a real weapon there."

Where are they now?

The Senators placed former Hawks forward Andre Burakovsky — the opposite of a fan favorite last season in Chicago — on injured reserve Saturday, declaring him out for three-to-four weeks.

Burakovsky has recorded zero points in eight games with the Senators since they surprisingly gave the Hawks a draft pick to acquire him in June.

That raises a question: How are other 2025-26 Hawks doing around the league this season?

Just behind Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl on the Oilers' ice-time leaderboard is former Hawks defenseman Connor Murphy, who has taken on a big role in Edmonton this season.

Meanwhile, Jason Dickinson just returned from injury — an unfortunately common occurrence even during his Hawks tenure — and has actually averaged less ice time in his four appearances so far than fellow ex-Hawk forward Colton Dach.

Nick Foligno is on IR with the Wild, as is Matt Grzelcyk with the Sabres. Louis Crevier has struggled to earn much ice time with the Sabres, and Sam Lafferty has bounced between the NHL and AHL for the Panthers.

Aside from Murphy, Ilya Mikheyev is probably having the smoothest start to the season among the group. He has four points in 13 games with the Lightning while playing a lot on their penalty kill.