{"id":21785,"date":"2018-10-03T17:26:26","date_gmt":"2018-10-03T21:26:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=21785"},"modified":"2018-10-03T17:26:26","modified_gmt":"2018-10-03T21:26:26","slug":"auroras-sikura-among-late-cuts-for-nhls-blackhawks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/auroras-sikura-among-late-cuts-for-nhls-blackhawks\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora\u2019s Sikura among late cuts for NHL\u2019s Blackhawks"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n

The hockey world will have to wait to see what top Chicago Blackhawks prospect Dylan Sikura can bring to the ice.
\nThe Aurora native was one of the final players to be cut from the NHL club\u2019s roster on Sunday, being officially assigned to the Rockford IceHogs of the American Hockey League, the Blackhawks\u2019 farm club.
\n\u201cI think sometimes when you\u2019re out there you just kind of overthink a few things,\u201d he said from the team\u2019s training camp. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot thrown at you within these two weeks with the systems and everything and you kind of catch yourself thinking too much out there sometimes. I think you\u2019ve just got to rely on your instincts and sometimes you\u2019ve just got to play the game of hockey instead of systems and stuff like that.\u201d
\nSikura was thrust back into the NHL limelight over a handful of preseason contests, taking to the wing while putting up a pair of points. Ultimately, he was the odd man out of a tough situation.
\n\u201cObviously I want to stay here,\u201d said Sikura. \u201cThis is the place I want to be. At this point it\u2019s tough to say what\u2019s going to happen. There\u2019s positives to both, obviously you see a guy last year go down and lit it up down in the (AHL) and come back up and sign a nice contract, so obviously there\u2019s some pros going to Rockford and you obviously want to play in the NHL. At the end of the day just control what I can control at this point.\u201d
\nThe 22-year old Sikura spent most of three seasons with the OJHL\u2019s Aurora Tigers, before becoming a prominent piece up the middle for the NCAA\u2019s Northeastern University Huskies over the past four seasons.
\nOver four seasons at Northeastern, Sikura averaged more than a point per game, with 58 goals, 88 assists and 146 points in 137 games.
\nSikura\u2019s college career ended with an upset when the Michigan Wolverines beat Northeastern 3- 2 in the first round of the 2017-18 NCAA tournament. He signed an entry-level contract worth $925,000 with the Blackhawks shortly after.
\nHe played in five contests with the big league club last season, flashing his potential in picking up three assists.
\nAs for the assignment to Rockford, Sikura does not see it as a demotion, but rather an \u201copportunity.\u201d
\n\u201cYeah, it\u2019s something that kind of lingers around during this time of the year, but just trying to play my game and see what I can bring to the table,\u201d he said. \u201cObviously there\u2019s going to be some tough decisions to be made and that\u2019s going to happen.\u201d
\n\u201cEvery guy is working for spots, and I\u2019ve put in my best effort and I\u2019m confident I\u2019ll eventually get my spot.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The hockey world will have to wait to see what top Chicago Blackhawks prospect Dylan Sikura can bring to the ice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5Fn","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-22 10:26:02","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21785\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}