The Blackhawks and goaltender Arvid Söderblom won’t need the arbitration hearing they had scheduled for Monday. They’ve settled on a two-year deal paying the restricted free agent an average annual value of $2.75MM, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports. Söderblom, who turns 26 in August, had set himself up well in contract talks this summer after something of a breakout season in 2024-25. An undrafted free agent signed by Chicago out of the SHL’s Skellefteå AIK in 2021, the Gothenburg native started a career-high 33 games with a 10-18-7 record, .898 SV%, 3.18 GAA, and 16 quality starts. While those numbers don’t jump off the page, it’s important to put them in context with the Hawks’ poor defense last season. Söderblom had the seventh-highest expected goals against average (3.20) of any NHL netminder to play at least 30 games last season, so his performance still came in better than expected with 1.0 GSAx and 0.16 wins above replacement on the year, according to MoneyPuck. Assuming he can keep that up, SödRead More