Paul Ludwinski wanted to be the next Patrick Kane — but now the Chicago Blackhawks prospect is happy to follow in Jonathan Toews’ footsteps

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A lot of young NHL prospects have a moment when they get a cue that says, “You’re playing with the big boys now.”

For Chicago Blackhawks prospect Paul Ludwinski, it was Jonathan Toews’ thighs.

“Basically the first time I saw him was at development camp,” Ludwinski told the Tribune. “We’re doing our testing and he’s just sitting off to the side watching, but he’s doing a one-legged wall sit.

“A wall sit’s hard enough but he’s doing it one-legged. And you can just see the size of this guy and see the size of his quads — he’s just humongous — and sitting there for like five minutes on one leg. I could probably only do like 20 seconds on a leg.”

It made such an impression, Ludwinski told his dad, Mark, about it.

“He said Toews is an absolute machine,” Mark Ludwinski told the Tribune. “He said his legs are like tree trunks.”

After Toews’ stretch, Paul Ludwinski said, “He came up to me first and was like, ‘Hey, how are you doing? I’m Jonathan.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, I know who you are.’ Just a pretty cool moment for me.”

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Forward Dominic James practices during Chicago Blackhawks prospect development camp at Fifth Third Arena, July 14, 2022. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

Ludwinski is looking forward to more of those moments on what could become a long road to the NHL.

The Hawks are staking a lot on the second-round pick’s development. The 5-foot-11, 184-pound forward and first-round defenseman Kevin Korchinski were the two pieces the Hawks selected after a predraft deal that shipped All-Star winger Alex DeBrincat to the Ottawa Senators — a huge bet placed by general manager Kyle Davidson’s new administration.

Baby steps first.

For Ludwinski, the first step was development camp in July and the second comes Wednesday through Sunday at the Tom Kurvers Prospect Showcase at Fifth Third Arena, where he and other Hawks prospects will practice and play two games against the Minnesota Wild on Friday and Sunday.

Then it’s on to main camp, where he’ll get to share the ice with Toews, whose No. 19 Ludwinski wears for the OHL Kingston Frontenacs, and Patrick Kane, his hockey role model since he was a kid.

In fact, that will represent a full-circle moment for Ludwinski, whose hockey journey seemed to lead him to exactly where he landed.

Ludwinski hails from Pickering, Ontario, about an hour’s drive east of Toronto, and like a lot of prospects he grew up in a hockey family. His father played youth hockey and brother Chris played Triple A.

Mark Ludwinski recalled the first time he took Paul, at age 3, to a local Learn to Skate.

“I skated him out to the middle of the ice where the instructor was. Paul turned to the door and skated right toward (the direction) to get off,” Mark said. “I said, ‘What are you doing?’ He said, ‘It’s noisy.’”

Mark briefly took him off and then back on again, but Paul skated off again.

Said Mark: “He said, ‘Dad, this ice is too cold. I can’t do it.’”

The instructor eased Paul into it on an artificial surface, and from then on he was hooked.

Ludwinski’s mom, Margaret, took him to a free rink in the neighborhood up to three times a week.

Chris, eight years his senior, contributed in his way too.

“We have a big trampoline and we’d basically wrestle in the thing,” said Paul, who recalled being about 8 at the time. “There’s only one exit because there’s netting, so I’d have to get out of there somehow.

“He kind of beat the wheels off me a bit. When I was younger I wasn’t as strong, but I think I’ve passed him because he’s a lawyer now. I think I can beat the wheels off him if we played again.”

At least it taught him about competitiveness, Ludwinski said.

“He definitely helped me build up grittiness,” he said. “We played road hockey, we battled in that. We wanted to beat each other in everything.

“I especially hated losing to him. It’s the worst thing because then you have to go through sitting at dinner and he’s talking about how he beat me so bad. My only excuse was, ‘I’m eight years younger than you.’

“You know, in the NHL you can’t use that excuse anymore because it doesn’t matter about age, it matters what works.”

From about age 4 or 5, Ludwinski would wear anything with No. 8 — Washington Capitals great Alex Ovechkin’s number.

From about 7 or 8, he started asking for Blackhawks gear, such as a goalie mask.

“There is a shift when I started watching Patrick Kane a lot,” Ludwinski said. “I was compared to Jonathan Toews when I was younger, too, by one of my earlier coaches.”

But as a budding young player it became all about Kane.

Said Mark Ludwinski: “Paul was a littler guy when he was young and Patrick Kane’s not a big man. He liked the way he played, his hands and his hockey sense, because Patrick Kane is a pretty slick player and Paul just took to him.”

Dave Nicoletti, Ludwinski’s coach with the Toronto Marlboros, said Ludwinski was “always a Blackhawks fan.”

“That’s not just kids saying that when they get drafted,” Nicoletti told the Tribune. “That’s legitimate. That was his team.

“So that’s really, really cool that he got drafted to Chicago and has an opportunity to be a part of that organization.”

Mark Ludwinski was amused by Paul’s interview with the Frontenacs before they selected him fifth in the 2020 OHL draft.

“They said, ‘Who do you think your game is like?’ And he said, ‘Patrick Kane, that’s the guy I want to be like.’

“They said, ‘That’s fine, Paul, but you’ll be a centerman. We have you pegged as a centerman, not a winger.’ He said, ‘Ah, that’s OK.’ They were saying, ‘We were hoping you were going to say Patrice Bergeron,’ who’s a really good two-way centerman for Boston.

“But, no, they were stuck with Patrick Kane.”

When Ludwinski arrived in Kingston, he couldn’t even get Kane’s No. 88 as a consolation prize.

Paul McFarland, the Fronts coach at the time and now an assistant for the Seattle Kraken, wasn’t keen on giving numbers that emulated Wayne Gretzky (99), Mario Lemieux (66) or Kane.

Mark Ludwinski reminded his son what a Duffield Devils coach once told him: “The way you play a two-way game, you’re going to be a player like Jonathan Toews.”

“So Paul remembered that and there’s a lot of good No. 19s, right?” Mark said. “Jonathan Toews and Steve Yzerman and Joe Sakic.”

Frontenacs assistant coach Chris Longo doesn’t see Ludwinski becoming another Toews on the ice, but he does think they share some qualities.

“With a guy like Jonathan Toews, he’s one of those quiet leaders, he leads by example,” Longo told the Tribune. “Lud is a lot like that too. He’s a quiet guy that goes about his business, doesn’t say a whole lot, but you never question his work ethic.”

Ludwinski displayed early on that he had the needed discipline to have a shot at the NHL.

“It comes when you realize he would choose hockey over drinking and partying,” Mark Ludwinski said. “His buddies were doing that kind of stuff and he’d remove himself from that.”

Nicoletti saw Ludwinski’s development “start to take off.”

“There was a good maturation to him,” Nicoletti said. “He definitely developed and he started understanding the game better. Not only the game but he understood his capabilities and how to play and how to utilize his strengths.”

In his under-16 year, Ludwinski started showing he understood the game’s nuances.

“Not every single shift had to be going 1,000 miles an hour, which would exhaust him in the third period and he’d be ineffective,” Nicoletti said. “Knowing to pick your spots, how to read and how to identify areas that you can contribute to your team for a positive outcome.”

Ludwinski credited Nicoletti with giving him “a lot of confidence to play at another level.”

It was also during this time Ludwinski evolved into a distributor instead of a shoot-first forward, Nicoletti said.

“That year he had one of the better shooters on his wing,” Nicoletti said. “He found that by outworking the opponents by picking up the puck from loose corners. That was another change in development from his first year where he’d just try to rush end to end, be that go-to guy, trying to do everything.”

It’s a good thing Ludwinski could accept being a role player. He missed a year of development with the Frontenacs because the league was shut down by COVID-19. When play resumed the next season, the team had its go-to guy: Shane Wright.

“(Ludwinski is) a centerman, but we had him on the wing playing with Shane Wright for the first part of the season, playing lots of minutes,” Longo said. “When our team got healthy and we had players come back, he shuffled down to the third line, played center.”

Ludwinski also didn’t get to play special teams, but Longo said he handled the decision well.

“As the season went on he got better and better and was able to be put in those types of situations and have some success, especially in the playoffs,” Longo said. “He really turned the switch and found another gear.”

Last season Ludwinski followed up a 16-goal, 27-assist campaign (67 games) with seven goals and five assists in 11 playoff games.

The Hawks had their eye on Ludwinski long before the draft, so when they acquired three first-round picks things were looking up for him as a dark-horse candidate to creep into the first round.

That especially can be true if other teams are sniffing around the player you’re targeting.

“I know there are some guys in St. Louis that really, really like him,” Longo said, “so I was expecting St. Louis to get him, but Chicago stepped up early and grabbed him.”

But as much as the Hawks wanted to compete for him, the cold, hard truth is that scoring forwards and blue-chip defensemen tend to take draft priority and Ludwinski is neither of those.

The Hawks spent that first-round capital on Korchinski, defenseman Sam Rinzel and speedy winger Frank Nazar.

Mark Ludwinski, who attended the draft in Montreal, took note of his son’s reaction when his name wasn’t called.

“I saw guys at the draft crying that they weren’t taken in the first,” Mark said. “Didn’t really faze Paul.”

The Hawks selected Paul Ludwinski with the seventh pick in the second round, 39th overall.

“You know, 38 picks were (selected) before me,” Ludwinski said. “I’m not saying that’s juice, but you use it as kind of juice.”

Hawks director of amateur scouting Mike Doneghey said Ludwinski is a high-character prospect who has “some snarl in his game. … He’s got that look in his eyes. You win with those types of guys.”

Ludwinski said everything happens according to a grand plan.

“That number is in my head, but it’s just a pick,” he said. “I could have been picked at 60 or I could have been picked at 30, but my effort wouldn’t stop.

“A seventh-rounder can beat out a second. Everyone’s fighting for a job now.”

It can take a few years for a prospect to develop, and it could take even longer in Davidson’s revamped system that emphasizes seasoning in the minors.

For Ludwinski, the process of fighting for a future roster spot starts Wednesday.

Then he plays with Kane, Toews and the rest of the pro roster at training camp, which is open to the public and starts Sept. 21.

“Got to bring my best,” Ludwinski said.

That will be his last exposure to the NHL for a while. He goes back to the Frontenacs after camp.

When Ludwinski returns to Kingston, Longo wants him to work on “being responsible defensively, take more responsibility on the power play, penalty kill.”

Ludwinski will get a chance to quarterback the power play, for example, and contribute more offensively. And Longo expects him to keep growing physically too.

“He’s still a kid,” he said. “He’s a strong kid, he’s just going to get stronger. And as he does that, he’s going to be that much more difficult to contain because of the pace that he plays and compete he plays at.”

Longo sees a future in which Ludwinski can anchor a third or fourth line or complement the next-generation Kane or Toews on a top-six line.

“He can play with the big dogs,” Longo said.