The Blackhawks’ miserable ’23-24 season has mercifully entered its final quarter but, unfortunately, continues once again on Tuesday night in the desert against the Arizona Coyotes.
Arizona is not a good hockey team, with just 51 points (25-31-5) in 65 games, which places them in seventh place in the Central Division. They’re still so far ahead of the Blackhawks’ last-place 35 points, though, that Chicago probably isn’t even visible in Arizona’s rearview mirror anymore. The Coyotes’ situation looked much better back on Jan. 23, after a pair of wins pushed Arizona up to 49 points, within two points of the Nashville Predators for the second wild card spot and with a pair of games in hand.
Then Arizona lost 14 games in a row, including all 11 in February.
There were a pair of overtime defeats in there, so the Coyotes picked up two points in the standings, but any hopes of a postseason berth are now long, long gone. There’s been a mild rebound in March, though, with a 5-3 win over the Ottawa Senators on Friday and a 5-2 win over the Washington Capitals on Sunday.
The outlook remains long-term for the ‘Yotes, a team that has 20 picks in the first three rounds of the next three drafts, with half of them in the second round. The long-term plan on the ice seems obvious. But where the team’s long-term future off the ice is less so, because where this team will play its hockey games remains an unanswered question.
The strange part about Arizona’s back-to-back wins is that its come without leading scorer Clayton Keller (52 points in 57 games), who hasn’t played since Feb. 25 because of an upper-body injury. There’s a chance he could return for this game, though, as the most recent updates described him as “day-to-day.” Keller turns 26 this summer, so he seems like he could be around for the long haul here, depending on how long it is. The other youths worth mentioning who are with the big club are 2022 No. 3 overall pick Logan Cooley (29 points in 61 games) and 2021 No. 9 overall pick Dylan Guenther (17 points in 24 games). There’s also 23-year-old J.J. Moser and 25-year-old Sean Durzi on the blue line as potential future pieces. Scott Wheeler of The Athletic, recently ranked Arizona with the No. 9 prospect pool in the league, so there’s some hope that more help is on the way. But that’s only so much comfort for a franchise that’s made the postseason just once since 2012.
Here’s the most recent Arizona lineup, which could be shifted if Keller returns:
Diving deeper into the Arizona situation only almost makes Chicago’s current plight seem less arduous, although watching either on-ice product isn’t going to inspire any sonnets. The Blackhawks had their asses kicked by the Colorado Avalanche once again on Monday night, another 5-0 defeat that was Chicago’s 22nd road defeat in a row and its 15th loss in the last 16 games overall (1-12-3).
There won’t be a morning skate for confirmation but the expectation here is that Arvid Soderblom will be in net to relieve Petr Mrazek after he was bombarded on Monday night. Any other lineup changes won’t be known until Richardson meets with the media a few hours before puckdrop.
This opponent seems like another one closer to the Blackhawks’ weight class given Arizona’s record, but sandwiched around those 5-0 losses to Colorado was a wildly dispiriting 5-2 loss to the similarly not good Columbus Blue Jackets. Chicago’s proven capable of losing to any NHL team lately. Maybe this evening is when it turns. Who knows?
Let’s go Hawks.
Tale of the Tape
Blackhawks — Statistic — Coyotes
44.00% (31st) — 5-on-5 Corsi For — 48.85% (21st)
42.83% (31st) — 5-on-5 Expected goals for — 49.08% (23rd)
2.0 (32nd) — Goals per game — 2.92 (t-24th)
3.58 (29th) — Goals against per game — 3.3 (23rd)
46.1% (31st) — Faceoffs — 45.6% (32nd)
12.7% (32nd) — Power play — 22.6% (t-12th)
77.2% (24th) — Penalty kill — 77.7% (t-21st)
How to watch
When: 8 p.m. CT
Where: Mullett Arena, Tempe
TV: NBC Sports Chicago
Webstream: Hulu/ESPN+
Radio: WGN 720