Blackhawks sign former 1st round bust, give him a second chance at the NHL

According to Chicago Blackhawks insider Ben Pope, the team has signed 31 year old defenseman Jarred Tinordi to a one year contract extension worth $1.25 million.

Tinordi is a former failed 1st round pick (22nd overall in 2010) who has bounced around the NHL and the AHL for the past decade. With the Blackhawks though he has finally found a home in the NHL and managed to play 44 games with the team this season, his career high by a mile. 

“I’m part of something they’re building here,” Tinordi said to Pope. “As a player, that’s all you really want: to have a role on a team and be respected for what you do, on and off the ice. I felt that this year. It just makes me play harder for the team.”

“I really wanted to dial in my consistency, and that’s something — for the most part this season — [at which] I’ve been really good,” he said. “You don’t want your bad games to be ‘D’ games. You want to keep your bad games at a ‘B’ and your good games at an ‘A’. [I’ve been] just working through that.”

“I couldn’t be more excited to be back for another year to help this team grow,” he said.

More from Pope:

Jarred Tinordi has found his niche on the Blackhawks after a decade of bouncing around North America.

The Hawks signed Tinordi on Tuesday to a one-year contract extension with a $1.25 million salary-cap hit, per a source, rewarding the defenseman for a workmanlike season in which he battled through numerous ailments to establish himself.

The 31-year-old hockey veteran joined the Hawks as an opening-week waiver claim from the Rangers. At that point, he had logged 109 NHL games over parts of eight seasons with five teams, plus another 429 AHL games over parts of nine seasons with six teams. He was the definition of a journeyman.

By March, though, Tinordi was wearing an “A,” filling in for Connor Murphy as an alternate captain — exemplifying how quickly he had become a trusted leader in the Hawks’ locker room.

He has appeared in 44 games (setting, by far, his NHL single-season career high) while recording two goals, six assists, 139 hits and 68 blocked shots.

- Ben Pope