Luke Richardson looks forward to a Chicago Blackhawks future with Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews — and Max Domi

Luke Richardson watched the conclusion of his first development camp as Chicago Blackhawks coach Friday at Fifth Third Arena.

Now he can take a breath. Sort of.

“It’s been lots of going for me in the last few weeks,” said Richardson, whom the team formally introduced June 29. “This is great. This is what we live for, hockey. It was great to see the young players putting in a great effort this week.”

He added it’s great to “get here and start meeting staff in the organization and diving right into the hockey feel.”

After a week of drills, Hawks draft picks, prospects and other invited players put what they learned at camp on display during a scrimmage.

It was tied 3-3 after two periods after Landon Slaggert took a high stick and Victor Stjernborg scored a penalty shot against Mitchell Weeks to knot it up for Team White.

But Team Red prevailed on winger Joseph Serpa’s 3-on-3 goal, his second marker of the day.

Filip Roos and Slaggert also scored for Team Red. Aidan Thompson and Nils Juntorp added goals for Team White.

It’s unlikely any of the camp participants, outside of defenseman Alex Vlasic, makes Richardson’s opening night roster, but that doesn’t mean they failed to make an impression.

“It was a lot of players to look at,” Richardson said, “but a young player like (25th overall draft pick Sam) Rinzel, he looks like a tall, lanky kind of guy off the ice, but when he gets on the ice he really has great footwork and speed and skating. He’s got lots to work on as a young defenseman, as everybody does, but that’s just something that you can recognize and I think that was a real good steal in the draft for us.”

Richardson pivoted to the draft’s seventh overall pick, defenseman Kevin Korchinski.

“Kevin had a great camp here, too, as our first pick and he’s a guy that can move the puck, have a good gap, good sticks,” Richardson said. “Not to compare him or anything, but a Duncan Keith, if he can try and emulate his game to that level, that’s someone that if he has a chance to look at some footage of him, that would be really helpful because he’s going to be a guy that moves the puck and can add to the offense,. He’s such a good skater and mobility and a good stick.”

Here are three things we learned from camp.

General manager Kyle Davidson described his recent conversations with Kane and Toews as “healthy.”

It remains to be seen how the two would characterize those discussions given that they’ve been dead set against dismantling the team. But Davidson has done precisely that, sacrificing Alex DeBrincat, Kirby Dach and Brandon Hagel for draft picks and prospects.

Richardson said he talked with the pair of locker room leaders, though luckily for him they’re all still in the get-to-know-you phase.

“I had a good talk with them this week, both just passing by in the gym but also a sit-down kind of a meet-and-greet in a private office, just so we can just sit and relax and talk,” he said. “We’re not diving into anything too deep yet.

“I just wanted to let them know who I am, what I’m about and listen to them on what they’re thinking and feeling over the last week, lots of changes and stuff like that. You know what? They seemed good to go and really excited about having an open communication.

“But also they’re driven, they said they’re driven to get their game and the team’s game on course to where we can have some success as much as possible this year.”

On Thursday, assistant coach Kevin Dean explained the merits of zone defense. It’s an ideology Richardson shares.

“It’s lots of times there’s lots of communication and reads out there,” Richardson said, “but overall zone defense is going to be way more structured than man-on-man where you’re flying all over the place.

“I think a real good structured hard defensive zone, where you stay in your zones, you’re passing off players,” is preferred, especially with younger players, Richardson said. “But the whole thing is when it’s your time to kill a play and get the puck back, we’ve got to be really strong at that.”

Asked about offense, Richardson kept it general.

“The offense is going to come from if we can play fast defense,” he said. “If we can have our forwards have that mindset it’s going to help our (defensemen) have a better gap and stay out of the D-zone and transition better in the neutral zone to have more offense and lead to more offense.

“We want to give some room for creativity to players like Patrick (Kane) — obviously one of the best in the league for years — but there’s areas and times in the games for that. … We’ve got to take risk out of it.”

Richardson doesn’t have much history with many of the Blackhawks, but he knows free-agent acquisition Max Domi from their time together in Montreal.

Both joined the Canadiens in 2018 (in Domi’s case, via a trade from the Arizona Coyotes) and were together for two seasons before the Columbus Blue Jackets traded for Domi’s rights on Oct. 6, 2020.

With DeBrincat traded to Ottawa, Domi is one of the candidates expected to help fill the loss of a 40-goal scorer.

“Max has got some great speed and good vision and sees the ice well,” Richardson said. “I definitely want him to bring that speed here.”

Domi, whom Richardson described as “almost too unselfish,” had nine goals and 23 assists in 53 games for Columbus. After a March trade, Domi finished out the season with the Carolina Hurricanes and notched three goals and three assists in 14 playoff games.

“Sometimes you’ve got to shoot that puck to make people honor you so then that opens up other people to make those plays,” Richardson said. “That’s something that we’ll talk about.”

The Hawks also signed Andreas Athanasiou, who’ll also be counted on for offense.

“I think free agency definitely helped,” Richardson said. “Adding some speed up front is really huge.”