Tonight: The return of Jonathan Toews

Maybe this team will receive a nice shot in the arm tonight, because they are getting back their future captain/star Jonathan Toews tonight, as they take on the Canucks in Vancouver at 9:00 PM central time. Also on the injury front, Jason Williams is expected to be back in a week, so that will provide another boost for the offense.

The Hawks come into tonight's game nine points out of the 8th and final playoff spot in the West, which is occupied by the Nashville Predators. The Canucks are one of the teams the Hawks would have to leap-frog over to get back into a playoff spot; Vancouver has 61 points and is 9th in the conference, just one point behind the Predators.

Nikolai Khabibulin is back in goal after a spectacular performance in the 2-1 victory over the Flames on Thursday night (he was the SCH Hawks Player Of The Game as well), and hopefully he can play just as well tonight. He made some ridiculous stops in the waning moments in Calgary.

Also, Jack Skille and Martin St. Pierre are healthy scratches tonight, along with Andrei Zyuzin (as usual). Toews is centering the top line with Patrick Sharp and Patrick Kane, while the 2nd line is now Tuomo Ruutu, Robert Lang and Martin Havlat. You can see the rest of the lineup here.