With the Blackhawks getting set to return from their nine-day hiatus in Buffalo, Henri Jokiharju was assigned to the Rockford IceHogs of the American Hockey League on Thursday.
It's both surprising but also not, considering his ice time has dipped for the last month and a half. He averaged exactly 20:00 minutes of ice time per game in his first 32 games, and was the team leader in 5-on-5 ice time before he left for the 2019 World Juniors.
In his most recent content before the All-Star break, Jokiharju logged only 12:55 in a 3-2 shootout win over the New York Islanders. It was the second time in four games he had logged fewer than 13 minutes, and in between that stretch he was a healthy scratch.
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With Slater Koekkoek part of the mix and Gustav Forsling returning from his upper torso injury soon, perhaps that's part of why the decision was made to send Jokiharju down. He can reset in Rockford and play in all situations rather than rotating in and out of the lineup on a nightly basis.
It's a long 82-game season, and many rookies struggle with that in their first year. It's a lot of hockey they're not used to. Jokiharju is no different.
"I think as a 19-year-old, we're pleased with his progression," coach Jeremy Colliton said before the break. "It's not going to happen overnight where he becomes a dominant player at this level. There's going to be ups and downs, and that's part of the journey as a young player. You got to go through some adversity, and it's not going to be perfect and that's fine. It's up to us to give us to give him the feedback he needs to continue to improve and up to him to work as hard as he can."
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