One Blackhawks prospect who has flown far under the radar in recent years is forward Dominic James, a 2022 sixth-round pick now in his senior year at Minnesota-Duluth.
Hawks general manager Kyle Davidson is quietly high on James, though, and believes in his future.
“Dom is a spark plug,” Davidson said. “When you talk about consistency in young players, he’s someone that you know what you’re going to get every night. You know you’re going to get a relentless effort.”
“We drafted him as a player later on in the draft that we really liked, but he kept bringing that dogged style of play and increased his offensive production to go along with it. He’s a guy we really like. He’s in a similar vein to Landon Slaggert at Notre Dame [last year]. Landon has had a nice transition to pro hockey. We’ll see where things go with Dom, but we really like the attitude he brings to the game, and we think he can bring it to pro hockey.”
Slaggert, as Davidson mentioned, spent four years in college before signing with the Hawks. James, who will turn 23 in July, is about to follow the same timeline. But he has actually played only three full seasons of college hockey.
That’s because a dislocated left shoulder — suffered during an innocuous post-faceoff puck battle — cost James all but two games of the 2023-24 season, his junior year at Duluth. At the time, it seemed like a massive setback for his career ambitions.
“To hear our athletic trainer tell me right away — right when she put my shoulder back in — that I was done for the year, it was really tough,” James said. “The next step was surgery for me, so I got the surgery done in Chicago. I was probably back in Duluth two days after surgery, just because I knew how important it was to be around the guys for your mental aspect.”
He was finally cleared to resume full activity in late March, so he at least got a full offseason of training.
Even during the rehab process, however, he was able to work on increasing his hip and ankle flexibility — among other lower-body exercises — and practice stick-handling with just his right hand. Once both hands were back in action, he spent the summer shooting thousands of pucks in his garage.
As Duluth’s captain this season, all that work has paid off. James raced out of the gates with 15 points in his first 10 games, and he continues to lead the team — which has struggled overall — with 25 points in 29 games.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, his shooting and stick-handling are two areas in which he has improved the most. But his work ethic and tenacity remain the most important tenets of his game.
“To be a guy that can forecheck and turn over pucks and have a good stick and be relentless on the back check is something I take pride in,” he said. “And I know I can do it with my skating.”
James said he has made up his mind about turning pro after this season. And it sounds like he intends to sign with the Hawks, whom he raved about for “treating you like a pro in college,” even though he could theoretically wait until Aug. 15 and become an unrestricted free agent.
“I’m really close with a lot of people in the organization, and it has been great for me,” James said, mentioning that Minneapolis-based Hawks development coach Christian Burrus has been his primary contact. “I would love to [sign with them].”
James will likely head to Rockford in 2025-26, and he’ll have to prove in the AHL that he can develop into an NHL-caliber forward. Such is life as a relatively low-profile, over-age prospect. But he has already demonstrated a proficiency for overcoming odds.
