Oliver Moore first round prize with Blackhawks at the end of the college season

Oliver Moore is ready to move on.

Moore, Choice n ° 19 of the Chicago Blackhawks in the NHL 2023 draft, decided to give up its remaining college eligibility and to sign an entry -level contract with Chicago, the team announced on Saturday. The second Moore season at the University of Minnesota ended Thursday with the defeat of gophers in overtime in the NCAA tournament. Moore is expected to join the Blackhawks for training on Saturday and could make his NHL debut on Sunday.

Moore, a 6-foot center and 185 pounds which was 20 years old at the end of January, was the 19th choice of NHL recovery in 2023 and finished fourth on the Golden Gophers by scoring with 33 points in 38 games this season in the second year, a year after also having recorded 33 points in 39 games as the first year (for which he was appointed to the Big Ten Rookie team).

He also won consecutive gold medals with the United States team at World Juniors.

Moore ended his second season with the Golden Gophers, finding the match sheet in eight of the last nine games of the team and scoring five goals and 10 points during this period. During the 5-4 defeat in extension of Minnesota against Umass in the first round of the NCAA tournament, he recorded a decisive pass and played 10:46 pm, second among the Gophers attackers.

Moore experienced offensive inconsistencies during his second season, but the Minnesota coach, Bob Motko, had Trusted in Moore to play.

“The points do not happen, and sometimes it bothers you, but it becomes so responsible for the defensive,” said Motzko at the start of the season. “It is a force on the band of the band, you know, how he attacks the washer. He just needs to be rewarded. Sometimes, you see second -year students going through there. You do it. But the right thing, all the big ones cross, but they cross it. He has a start, an environment and an end.”

Moore has also discussed work through it.

“You will not have your game every night,” said Moore. “I think I found a very good game B Plus. I am proud of that, obviously using my offensive speed, defensively, creating chances of pre-head, just being a hunter there and being everywhere on the ice. This is something when things are not offensively, I can somehow come back and good things that will happen.”

Moore spent time during the off -season working with the Blackhawks coach Brian Keane and they focused on having Moore marked in better areas around the net.

“It is a large part of the university game and results in the upper level,” said Moore.

In AthleticsTop 100 of the NHL top 100 in 2025, published in February, Moore ranked 64th – fifth among the prospects of Blackhawks.

Screening report

Moore has always had a coherent game impact in match even when the points do not arrive (he rarely has a bad game and works and finds ways to involve himself and make things happen). His game is defined by his world class skating capacity (both in a straight line, where he easily transforms defenders, into rapid gusts of explosive stops and departures and rounded corners and the end of his edges) and the coherence of presence on ice.

He has gallops, cuts, multisgments, all this. He regularly creates escapes, wins races he should not and sends the defenders to slide when he stops with a steam head. It also hunts the washers and applies the pressure with the best of them and its engine does not stop, bouncing a battle won in the next.

He wants to hang on to the washer and play games, but he will also dispatch him and dominate in and get out of game. He has fast hands. He has time to timer of the right flank and can really tear his capture and release or chain when he gets a clean look. It is an impressive athlete who is strong for a player of 5 feet 11 inch, which should help him stay at the center. He learned to use more diverse movement models to make defenders miss and go to his places as a shooter. He is strong in the circle of playing. In addition, his game is not entirely the element of speed / dog and he showed his protection of the washer in and out of stops and begins in the offensive zone, changing direction to beat the defenders of the wall into precious ice.

But it simply does not seem to finish the games around the slit or in the whole one and this lack of finish despite the tools to do it and some pretty goals over the years on dekes and shots, has become a bit of a constant question and raised questions about its offensive advantage in the NHL. There is not much in Nitpick in his tools or his approach, although he needs to think a little better the game with the washer. He can impose his will on the games. But although his game is fast and tenacious, you are more likely to look at a third fast and determined liner.

(Photo: Michael Miller / Getty Images)