The Hawks end their weeklong trek through Canada on Saturday afternoon against the Ottawa Senators.
Ottawa enters this game on a bit of a surge, having won three of its last four games — most recently a 4-0 win at home over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday night. Outside of that stretch, though, there are a bunch of Ls on their schedule, including a 7-3 loss to these Blackhawks in Chicago back on Oct. 28. Connor Bedard had a hat trick that night. A lot of the items from that preview remain true: a talented group of forwards in their 20s is still leading the way, highlighted by Tim Stutzle (34 points in 33 games), Drake Batherson (32 in 30) and Dylan Cozens (24 in 33). Claude Giroux continues defying Father Time (20 in 33) while Jake Sanderson remains one of the best defenseman you probably don’t know much about with 26 points in 33 games and a team-high average ice time of 25:14. One difference now is that Brady Tkachuk is back from an injury that sidelined him at the start of the season and the somehow even more ornery Tkachuk brother is at a point per game (4 G, 9 A) in the 13 he’s played. On the injury front, Ottawa is expected to get Thomas Chabot back for this game after an upper-body injury kept him out for a month, while Lars Eller remains on the shelf after breaking his foot last week.
The Senators largest problems remain in goal, where the team has a collective .882 save percentage and 2.99 goals-against average, with starter Linus Ullmark (13-8-4, .884, 2.89) and backup Leevi Merilainen (3-5-0, .877, 3.32) have combined for a pretty bad goals saved above expected mark of minus-14.0. Hawks coach Jeff Blashill talked a lot about shooting the puck more following Thursday’s loss and, regardless of who’s in net for Ottawa, goals should be available if the Hawks follow that strategy.
The afternoon start means no morning skates, so here was Ottawa’s most recent lineup from that Pittsburgh game on Thursday:
Brady-Timmy-Zetterlund Perron-Cozens-Batherson Amadio-Greig-Giroux MacDermid-Halliday-Cousins Sandy-Zub Kleven-Spence Matinpalo-Jensen Ullmark
— Graeme Nichols (@graemenichols.bsky.social) December 18, 2025 at 5:38 PM
As for the Hawks, things remain the same as they have all week: without Bedard in the lineup, this team needs some other forwards to step up and carry the goal-scoring burden, although that hasn’t really happened in the three games since No. 98 was sidelined. At practice on Friday, there was a shuffling of the forward lines, although Blashill was noncommittal on whether or not those lines will take the ice in this game.
Blackhawks lines in practice today in Ottawa:
— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) December 19, 2025
Burakovsky-Nazar-Bertuzzi
Mikheyev-Dickinson-Moore
Donato-Greene-Teravainen
Lafferty-Dach-Lardis
Toninato
Vlasic-Crevier
Grzelcyk-Levshunov
Kaiser-Murphy
Del Mastro pic.twitter.com/4voHtHJ8md
For comparison’s sake, this was the lineup for the Montreal game on Thursday:
Blackhawks lineup in warmups Bertuzzi-Nazar-Burakovsky Teräväinen-Dickinson-Mikheyev Moore-Greene-Lardis Dach-Toninato-Donato Vlasic-Crever Grzelcyk-Levshunov Kaiser-Murphy Knight Söderblom
— Scott Powers (@scottpowers.bsky.social) December 18, 2025 at 5:36 PM
Regardless of who’s on the ice and who they’re skating with, the Hawks simply need to score some goals to put this losing streak to bed. Ottawa’s goalies should offer that opportunity, although the skaters in front of them have possessed the puck well this season, which means any scoring chances the Hawks generate will require capitalization to ensure two points follow this team back to Chicago.
Let’s go Hawks.
Tale of the Tape
Blackhawks — Statistic — Senators
46.70% (28th) — 5-on-5 Corsi For — 52.17% (7th)
44.36% (32nd) — 5-on-5 Expected goals for — 53.80% (4th)
2.76 (t-25th) — Goals per game — 3.09 (13th)
3.03 (16th) — Goals against per game — 3.15 (21st)
46.2% (30th) — Faceoffs — 56.5% (2nd)
20.8% (11th) — Power play — 25.7% (t-4th)
84.2% (4th) — Penalty kill — 71.1% (31st)
(All stats from this season)
How to watch
When: 2 p.m. CT
Where: Canadian Tire Center, Ottawa
TV: CHSN
Webstream: ESPN+
Radio: WGN 720