Blackhawks vs Blues Preview, Projected Lines
Tonight, the Chicago Blackhawks (28-37-14) face the St. Louis Blues (33-33-12) for the 4th and final time this season. The Blackhawks have won 2 of the 3 games so far, including 2 beatings 8-3 and 7-3. This game may not have any playoff implications, but these two teams do not like each other so expect a hard fought game on both sides.
Photo by: Chicago Blackhawks
The Blackhawks are coming off of the first game of their 4 game home stand to end the season where they got beat 7-2 by the Hurricanes. A game where the Blackhawks were out worked and outplayed throughout 60 minutes. The Hurricanes used the Blackhawks inexperienced D-core to their advantage, forechecking hard and pressuring the young players into making mistakes. Combine that with the Blackhawks forwards leaving the zone too early on breakouts, and the score makes sense. Spencer Knight also had one of his worst performances of the year putting up a .682 save percentage. Jeff Blashill had this to say on the teams performance: “One thing we didn’t do well enough was compete on the puck, you know so that’s a disappointing thing obviously….Although they obviously had a light lineup tonight, they still worked and competed on the puck, and we didn’t do that enough, we lost too many puck battles”
As a result, yesterday’s was focused on 1 on 1 battles, both along the boards and in open ice.
On a positive note, Anton Frondell scored both goals for the Blackhawks. Finishing the night with 2 goals, a +/- of +2, 2:31 TOI, 5 SOG, 2 blocks, and 1 hit. A pretty impressive stat line given the circumstances. The “Frondell at center” experiment seems to be working as he has no issues driving his own line. A potential center core of Bedard - Frondell - Nazar - X for years to come does sound very nice. The best teams are always strong up the middle of the ice.
A player to keep an eye on tonight is St. Louis’s Robert Thomas — who has 6 goals and 9 points in his last 5 games. Thomas has been in trade rumors for a long time, and Chicago has always been one of the potential destinations. Although Thomas is a center and the Hawks could probably use a winger if Frondell is going to play center long-term.
Projected Lines
Greene - Bedard - Lardis
Bertuzzi - Frondell - Mikheyev
Donato - Nazar - Burakovsky
Mangiapane - Boisvert - Teravainen
Vlasic - Crevier
Kaiser - Rinzel
Korchinski - Del Mastro
Sacha Boisvert is likely to draw back into the lineup tonight and play his first game at the United Center. His last game was the 4-1 win in Seattle where he notched his first NHL goal, which ended up being the game winner.
