Before this season, Jarred Tinordi spent the first seven years of his NHL career trying to earn an everyday roster spot. He had never played more than 28 games in a season and had bounced around five different teams over that span.
In October, Tinordi was placed on waivers for the seventh time in his career by the New York Rangers. And for just the second time, he was claimed, with the rebuilding Blackhawks taking a flyer on him.
"You don't know how many more times that phone is going to ring," Tinordi told NBC Sports Chicago. "At a certain point it's going to stop ringing, so that was really my mindset this year, forget about the noise, forget about what happened at training camp this year in New York and things like that and just reset and go out and play hard and see what happens."
So what happened? Well, Tinordi immediately became one of head coach Luke Richardson's most dependable defensemen when healthy. He's a steady, physical presence, and, as Richardson best described him: "If you owned a bar, you'd hire him as your bouncer. He looks in control and people are unsure and they don't mess around."
Tinordi even grew into a leadership role, recently wearing the "A" as the third alternate captain when Connor Murphy and Jonathan Toews were out of the lineup.
"He’s a great team player," Richardson said. "Team first and he grew up in that lifestyle and understands it. He keeps himself in top shape, which is always a good rub-off with younger players, to see how hard he works and how quickly he recovers from injuries and all kinds of things, the intangibles, not to mention he's just a good presence on the ice physically.
"There’s not a lot of open-ice hitters anymore, and he keeps the other team on their toes and backs it up as well. Everybody else feels a little bigger out there."
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Tinordi is an absolute warrior as well. He was perhaps the unluckiest player in the NHL this season after suffering a laceration under his chin from a skate blade between 50-100 stitches in December and then nine days later taking a slapshot to the face that resulted in multiple facial fractures, which required his jaw being wired shut for five weeks.
Tinordi has also been dealing with a recurring hip injury that may or may not need surgery this offseason, although that hasn't been decided yet.
"A lot of things are still up in the air," Tinordi said. "Talking to the doctors, I think we have some decisions to make or conversations to have at the end of the year. I'm always a proponent of if you don't absolutely need surgery, don't cut open anything, so we'll just see. At the end of the season we'll reassess and go from there."
Surgery or no surgery, Tinordi may have finally found some NHL stability here in Chicago at age 31. He's set to become an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season and "would love to" be back with the Blackhawks.
"Me and my family we're kind of Midwesterners at heart," Tinordi said. "We like it here. We've always loved the city. I like the group and the team, the coaches, what they're building here. I know it's been a rough year as far as winning hockey games this year but if you look towards the future, if I can help in any way build something here, it would be great."
Given what he's brought to the table this season and how well he's fit in with Chicago, it feels like a no-brainer for the Blackhawks to re-sign Tinordi, who hopes the feeling is mutual.
"I feel like it is, but you never really know what direction teams want to go," Tinordi said. "Hopefully they see that I can be a fit here in the future. In the meantime, I'm just going to focus on finishing the year and have a strong finish to the year and do what I can and then let that stuff take care of itself at the end of the year."
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