Blackhawks' Nick Foligno needs to make decision about trade deadline soon

DENVER — Nick Foligno is a wild card in the Blackhawks' trade-deadline plans, but it's within the realm of possibility the team captain could request a trade.

Foligno, a pending free agent who may or may not be playing out the final season of his 19-year NHL career, has had one preliminary conversation with Hawks general manager Kyle Davidson. He expects to have another conversation closer to the deadline next Friday.

"[We discussed] the state of where we're at and what my thoughts were, what his thoughts were," Foligno said Friday.

"There's just a lot of unknowns, right? When you're in this situation where you're not in the playoffs, there's decisions that the organization has to make, and therefore there's decisions you have to make. That's something we're just going to go through the process of. It's too early to say."

Foligno's contract doesn't give him control over his fate, but his status in the organization functionally does.

It's worth noting his two primary former teams, the Blue Jackets and Bruins, are both in the playoff race in the Eastern Conference — and his family would be familiar with both of those cities.

Mikheyev’s status

Contract-extension talks between the Hawks and Ilya Mikheyev have been tabled, increasing Mikheyev's availability on the trade market, Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman reported Friday.

Mikheyev deflected questions about the situation Friday, claiming he doesn't "think about contract or trade."

The Hawks probably don't want to give Mikheyev, a 31-year-old pending free agent, a new contract longer than two years, although they're probably willing to be generous with the salary-cap hit.

Mikheyev might be seeking a longer-term deal, knowing this is his last opportunity to do so. He made an interesting impromptu comment about how "you're not going to play hockey until 45 or something."

Friedman also discussed Friday an emerging surplus of sellers compared to buyers around the league right now. That could hurt Davidson's odds of finding contenders willing to take — and meet his asking prices for — players like Mikheyev, Connor Murphy and Jason Dickinson.