{"id":22526,"date":"2018-12-22T01:36:20","date_gmt":"2018-12-22T06:36:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=22526"},"modified":"2018-12-22T01:36:20","modified_gmt":"2018-12-22T06:36:20","slug":"by-jake-courtepatte","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/by-jake-courtepatte\/","title":{"rendered":"By Jake Courtepatte"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jake Courtepatte<\/p>\n

In joining the NHL\u2019s worst powerplay, Dylan Sikura is hoping to jumpstart the offense of the Chicago Blackhawks.
\nThe 23-year old Aurora native has made his first official regular season leap onto the big club\u2019s roster, called up from the AHL affiliate Rockford IceHogs late last week.
\nSince signing a two-way deal with the Blackhawks in March of this year, Sikura has become a leader in the Rockford dressing room, pacing the team lead in points with nine goals and nine assists through 26 games so far this year.
\nStill, Sikura says he feels the pressure in donning the red and white of one of the sport\u2019s most storied franchises.
\n\u201cI think you\u2019ve got to be human, feel a little pressure,\u201d said Sikura in a media scrum following his first game with the big club this season, a 6 \u2013 3 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins. \u201cBut I think that\u2019s good and part of the game, and that\u2019s part of the reason why you love to play the game. Obviously, it\u2019s a little magnified here, playing in Chicago in an organization like this, but I think it comes with the territory.\u201d
\nWith three games under his belt since the call-up, the winger is still looking to find his groove and his first NHL goal, posting an assist in a 7 \u2013 3 loss to the San Jose Sharks on Sunday.
\nYet Sikura feels up to the task.
\n\u201cI\u2019m in a lot better spot,\u201d Sikura said. \u201cThe adjustments to the pro hockey level is pretty tough and I kind of found out the hard way. But I\u2019m going to use the experience from the time down in Rockford and hopefully have a better jump start here.\u201d
\n\u201cFor me it was important to go down there with a positive mindset. Some guys go down there and they\u2019re not too happy about it. But I think it\u2019s something that\u2019s going to benefit me in the long run. I got a lot from it, improved my game, just getting adjusted to this level and hopefully it will show here.\u201d
\nFirst year head coach Jeremy Colliton, who manned the bench behind Sikura in Rockford last season, said there is certainly room for Sikura to earn a permanent spot on the Blackhawks roster.
\n\u201cThere\u2019s room in our top nine,\u201d said Colliton in the same media scrum, praising the quickness and agility of his young prot\u00e9g\u00e9. \u201cHe has played better and that\u2019s important to reward guys when they show a progression\u2026he\u2019s been more active away from the puck. He\u2019s a little heavier stick, heavier in battles, maybe more confidence, too. He\u2019s made more plays, pucks have gone in the net for him. It\u2019s always nice as a skill player to see them go in.\u201d
\nSikura 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 a star-studded four-year collegiate career.
\nOver four seasons at Northeastern, Sikura averaged more than a point per game, with 58 goals, 88 assists and 146 points in 137 games.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In joining the NHL\u2019s worst powerplay, Dylan Sikura is hoping to jumpstart the offense of the Chicago Blackhawks.
\nThe 23-year old Aurora native has made his first official regular season leap onto the big club\u2019s roster, called up from the AHL affiliate Rockford IceHogs late last week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":22506,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_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}},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/2018-12-20-07.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5Rk","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-18 06:38:37","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22526","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=22526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}