After playing — and beating — one of the best teams the Pacific Division has to offer on Saturday afternoon, the Blackhawks face one of the worst in the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday night in California.
The Ducks have been floundering alongside the Blackhawks near the bottom of the league standings for several seasons now, and that doesn’t appear likely to change in the 2024-25 season. A 4-4-2 record has them above only the San Jose Sharks in the Pacific following a 1-2-2 road trip out east that ended with a 2-1 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Halloween night, so the Ducks should be recharged for this one after a few days off. Anaheim currently owns the lowest-scoring offense in the NHL, averaging a paltry 2.20 goals per game through the first 10. Young forwards like Leo Carlsson (6 points in 10 games) and Mason McTavish (5 in 10) are still getting their feet wet at the NHL level, along with the blue-line trio of Cutter Gauthier, Olen “Renee is not my mother” Zellweger and Cutter Gauthier. There’s also Trevor Zegras, the No. 9 pick in 2019 who’s now well over 200 games in his NHL career and seems to be scuffling once again with just a goal and two assists through 10 games. His ice time also trended downward steadily since his back-to-back 60-point seasons earlier in this decade, and one has to wonder if a change of scenery could be looming as his struggles in Anaheim continue. Such conversations were reportedly happening this summer, too. The Ducks have a decent young core at the NHL level and the No. 5 prospect pipeline in the league as recently as this summer, according to The Athletic.
One other player who isn’t really considered a prospect anymore but could be around for the long-term is 24-year-old goaltender Lukas Dostal, who has all four of Anaheim’s wins this season. His numbers are sparkling for being on such an awful team: 4-2-2 record, .945 save percentage and 1.99 goals-against average. Those numbers will almost certainly come back down to Earth over the course of the season, but he’s faced 40-plus shots in three of his 10 starts this season and has been holding up well every time. Solving him will be the primary objective for Chicago in this game.
Expect Anaheim’s lines to look something like this:
As for the Blackhawks: nothing to report lineup-wise with the team not having a morning skate following Saturday’s surprising come-from-behind win in LA. While the Ducks are nowhere near the level of quality that the Kings are, expecting to beat any NHL team with just 20 minutes of quality hockey is a fool’s errand. A more consistent effort will probably be necessary in this game, because Dostal has proven to be a rather formidable backstop against offenses far more potent than the one Chicago currently has.
Arvid Soderblom will get the nod in net after Petr Mrazek handled Saturday’s duties, but the skaters in front of him will likely be unchanged from Saturday’s group:
Two wins out of this three-game jaunt out west seemed possible given the opponents, and a victory on Sunday would accomplish that goal, even if it occurred in a slightly different matter than initially expected. Make it so.
Let’s go Hawks.
Tale of the Tape
Blackhawks — Statistic — Ducks
43.71% (32nd) — 5-on-5 Corsi For — 46.9% (27th)
42.37% (31st) — 5-on-5 Expected goals for — 45.1% (28th)
2.17 (32nd) — Goals per game — 2.48 (30th)
3.52 (29th) — Goals against per game — 3.57 (30th)
46.3% (29th) — Faceoffs — 46.7% (29th)
16.60% (28th) — Power play — 18.3% (23rd)
75.76% (27th) — Penalty kill — 72.42% (31st)
(All stats from last season)
How to Watch
When: 7 p.m. CT
Where: Honda Center, Anaheim
TV: CHSN (How to Watch) Good luck finding it!
Webstream: ESPN+
Radio: WGN 720