CHICAGO — Chicago Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson had no idea who he was going to have on his team beyond the trade deadline last season.

Blackhawks players were all over the insiders’ trade boards. Richardson had to sit players for “hockey reasons.” Players were here today and gone tomorrow. Patrick Kane vanished one morning in San Jose.

This season will be different. The Blackhawks have a few players who might create some interest next month at the deadline, but with general manager Kyle Davidson already re-signing Jason Dickinson, Petr Mrazek and Nick Foligno, who were all previously on expiring contracts, that’s unlikely.

“We have guys who were going to be in that situation that we kind of locked up, the three guys,” Richardson said last week. “There’s a few other guys around who could be in that situation, but it’s hard with the cap situation for other teams to pick up guys that have too much money on the cap. For us, we have some younger guys in the lineup who aren’t going anywhere. Definitely, it’s a different feel this year than last year.”

The only Blackhawks player to appear on Chris Johnston of The Athletic’s trade deadline board earlier this week was Tyler Johnson. Even with that, Johnson was ranked No. 30, so it’s not as if his name is flying around the league.

Although it’s unlikely Johnson will get moved at the deadline, it’s not out of the realm of possibility. He has been productive when healthy this season. He scored his 10th goal of the season in Tuesday’s 4-2 loss to the Vancouver Canucks. He has played in just 38 games because of injury, but he’d be on a 20-goal pace otherwise. He’s also the type of veteran teams often look to add at the deadline because he has been through Stanley Cup runs and knows what it takes to win. The other factor is the Blackhawks would have no problem eating half of his $5 million cap hit.

Johnson was asked earlier this week if he was paying attention to the trade boards and that possibility.

“I mean, no, not really,” he said. “It’s stuff you can’t control. See what happens.”

Johnson does have some control, though. He has a modified no-trade clause in his contract and can say no to 20 teams. Johnson downplayed that, too.

“Again, I can’t really control it, right?” Johnson said. “So I have a little bit as far as … I think I have, what, 10 or 12 teams of nos or whatever. But you do that so long ago, I can’t even tell you who is on the list to begin with.”

Johnson isn’t worrying about any of that. For him, it’s just getting back to feeling good after missing more than a month of hockey due to a foot injury.

“I’m just glad I’m back and feeling good,” Johnson said. “I was trying to get back into the swing of things for a little bit. Obviously, having a month off is pretty tough.”

Outside of Johnson, there probably isn’t anyone you’d guess would be moved by the Blackhawks at the deadline, but you never know. As Johnson said, we’ll see what happens.

(Photo: Kamil Krzaczynski / USA Today)