The end of the 2023-24 Chicago Blackhawks season is almost here! They play their last game of the season at the United Center on Sunday evening, facing off against the Carolina Hurricanes.
The Hurricanes come to Chicago riding a four-game winning streak — including a 5-2 road win over the St. Louis Blues on Friday in their most recent game — and having earned a point in eight of their last 10. This recent surge has kept them firmly in second place in the Metropolitan Division standings, well ahead of the three trailing teams still battling for a playoff spot but not quite enough to catch the first-place New York Rangers. The latter is still technically achievable: the Rangers are three points up, but the Hurricanes have two games in hand, so if New York loses their final game and Carolina wins out, the team from the south will jump to the top.
While often teams firmly entrenched in a playoff spot aren’t fighting for much at the end of the season, the Hurricanes still have a little work them to try to secure home ice advantage in most — if not all — of the post-season.
The top players for the Hurricanes haven’t changed much since the Blackhawks last faced them on Feb. 19. Sebastian Aho still easily leads the Hurricanes with 88 points (35 G, 53 A) in 77 games, a 1.14 point-per-game rate that is top-20 in the league. Considering the rest of the Hurricanes are good but not as elite offensively, that’s quite a feat for the Finnish center. The Hurricanes also have four players with 50 points or more: Seth Jarvis (65), Martin Necas (53), Teuvo Teravainen (51), and Andrei Svechnikov (50). On the back end, Brady Skjei heads with 13 goals and 34 assists, just edging out Brent Burns, who is seven points behind.
There is one major change in the Hurricanes lineup since the Blackhawks last saw them: they acquired Jake Guentzel via trade from the Pittsburgh Penguins on March 7, and he’s been excellent for Carolina since then, racking up 24 points (8 G, 16 A) in 16 games. Guentzel enters the game Sunday on a seven-game point streak, including two goals in the St. Louis game.
It’s unknown what the Hurricanes lineup will be in Chicago as they didn’t run lines at their Saturday practice and also didn’t have a morning skate on Sunday. Below are the lines they ran in the St. Louis game, though:
As the lines above indicate, defensemen Brett Pesce and Jalen Chatfield along with forwards Jordan Staal and Teuvo Teravainen did not play on Friday. However, all four did practice on Saturday, so they could draw back into the lineup against the Blackhawks.
As for in net, the prediction is that the Blackhawks will face Pyotr Kochetkov, the Russian wunderkind who stole the starting role from Frederik Andersen this season:
On the other side of things, the Blackhawks are entering their last home game on a three-game losing streak, including an abysmal 5-1 loss to the Nashville Predators on Friday. Unlike Carolina, Chicago fans are watching the standings to see if the Blackhawks get the top lottery spot or not. They’ve already secured the second-best lottery odds, being six points below the Anaheim Ducks and four points up on the San Jose Sharks but owning the better ROW record between the two. The Blackhawks will now pick, at worst, fourth in the upcoming 2024 NHL Draft.
So again, very slim chance and almost not worth rooting for as a Blackhawks fan. The players themselves are going to be try their best and close out this dreadful season on at least a positive note, too.
As for the Blackhawks lineup, they also didn’t have morning skate, but below are the lines they ran at practice on Saturday:
The biggest question for Chicago fans is: will recent signed Frank Nazar going to play Sunday? With no morning skate, the answer isn’t known currently, but coach Luke Richardson will address the media about 2.5 hours before puck drop. In the meantime, we do know that Nazar has been at the United Center this morning and his jersey number will be 91.
[UPDATE]: Richardson confirmed Nazar would be in the lineup Sunday:
And if you don’t have any plans for the game, we’ll be watching it over Marz Brewing!
Tale of the Tape
Blackhawks — Statistic — Hurricanes
44.13% (31st) — 5-on-5 Corsi For — 59.45% (1st)
43.00% (31st) — 5-on-5 Expected goals for — 56.67% (2nd)
2.16 (32nd) — Goals per game — 3.38 (8th)
3.51 (29th) — Goals against per game — 2.54 (3rd)
46.5% (30th) — Faceoffs — 52.7% (6th)
16.5% (29th) — Power play — 26.6% (3rd)
76.7% (23rd) — Penalty kill — 86.2% (1st)
How to Watch
When: 5 p.m. CT
Where: United Center, Chicago
TV: NBC Sports Chicago
Webstream: NBC Sports App, ESPN+
Radio: WGN 720