The final month of the Blackhawks 2024-25 season kicks off at home on Wednesday night with the Colorado Avalanche in town for a national broadcast.
Just eight games remain on the Blackhawks schedule and seven on the Avalanche schedule, although more games await Colorado later this month with it likely claiming the No. 3 seed in the Central Division when the postseason begins. The Avalanche have 94 points in 75 games, placing them eight behind second-place Dallas and five ahead of surging St. Louis with a game in hand, so there doesn’t appear to be enough time left for that spot in the standings to change. Recent trends have been largely positive for the Avalanche, with a 17-6-2 record since Jan. 27. They did lose 3-2 in the shootout to the Calgary Flames in their most recent game on Monday night, though.
Much of the attention in Colorado has been on practice ice, where Gabriel Landeskog continues making his way back from injuries that have sidelined him since the end of the 2022 postseason, which ended with Colorado hoisting the Cup. He continues skating but his return won’t happen for this game or until the postseason — if at all. But Landeskog hasn’t been this close to game action in multiple years. As for the Avalanche skaters who will be participating in this game, the majority of the players should be familiar by now: Nathan MacKinnon is still a nightmare waiting to happen for all opposing defensemen and he leads this side with 110 points (30 G, league-best 80 A) in 75 games, while Cale Makar paces the blue line better than just about anyone else in the NHL with 85 (28 G, 57 A) in 75 games as well. While Mikko Rantanen was moved at the deadline out of fear that he may not sign long-term in Colorado, the Avalanche have found adequate production in Martin Necas, who came over from Carolina in that Rantanen trade and is just under a point-per-game since joining the Avalanche with 25 (10 G, 15 A) in 26 games. The bottom-six may not look great but the top-six is so good that it may be enough to send Colorado deep into the spring and summer months once again.
Goaltending has been the story of Colorado’s season, though, with Mackenzie Blackwood and Scott Wedgewood joining the team via midseason trades and playing significantly better than the duo that started the season as Colorado’s goalies: Alexandar Goergiev and Justus Annunen. That the Avalanche swapped out goalies midseason and soared up the standings remains one of the most interesting storylines from the entire NHL season.
Wedgewood will be in net for this game, while the lineup below is from Monday’s game against Calgary and may see a change on the back end per the tweet from Avalanche play-by-play voice Conor McGahey.
Kiviranta returns tonight for the @Avalanche. Wedgewood starts. Girard out. #COLvsCHI #GoAvsGo
— Conor McGahey (@ConorMcGahey) April 2, 2025
Tonight's Avs warmies lines: Lehkonen — MacKinnon — Drouin Nichushkin — Nelson — Necas Vesey — Coyle — Colton Kelly — Drury — O’Connor Toews — Makar Lindgren — Malinski Girard — Johnson Wedgewood
— Ryan Boulding (@rboulding.bsky.social) March 31, 2025 at 7:13 PM
One of Colorado’s victories during its recent surge was a 3-0 shutout of the Blackhawks on March 10 in Denver, still Chicago’s only shutout of the season. That was also the NHL debut of 2024 No. 2 overall pick Artyom Levshunov, who remains part of the Blackhawks lineup three weeks later and with the first year of his entry-level contract now burned. He’s since been joined in the lineup by two more first-round picks in Oliver Moore and Sam Rinzel, who skated on NHL ice for the first time during Sunday’s 5-2 loss to Utah. All three are back in the lineup again against this speedy Colorado side, although one first-round pick is headed to the press box: Kevin Korchinski is being scratched in favor of Ethan Del Mastro. Still, five kids on the blue line is hard to complain about, based on the lineup for the morning skate:
Expected Blackhawks lineup tonight vs. Colorado: Donato-Bedard-Mikheyev Teräväinen-Nazar-Bertuzzi Slaggert-Moore-Reichel Maroon-Veleno-Foligno Vlasic-Rinzel Del Mastro-Murphy Kaiser-Levshunov Knight Söderblom
— Mark Lazerus (@marklazerus.bsky.social) April 2, 2025 at 12:04 PM
Colorado has been one of the league standards for a speedy, skilled team in the NHL for several seasons now, with the team’s No. 1 center and No. 1 defenseman as pinnacles of their positions. With so much youth in the Chicago lineup, they may be better equipped to handle Avalanche’s speed. The skill? That’s another question entirely and one that likely won’t be answered in a positive way for Chicago this evening. But watching the kids try to do that is part of the intrigue surrounding this team at the moment.
Let’s go Hawks.
Tale of the Tape
Blackhawks — Statistic — Avalanche
44.05% (32nd) — 5-on-5 Corsi For — 54.15% (3rd)
42.96% (32nd) — 5-on-5 Expected goals for — 51.69% (9th)
2.7 (27th) — Goals per game — 3.32 (6th)
3.61 (31st) — Goals against per game — 2.77 (10th)
45.2% (31st) — Faceoffs — 46.8 (29th)
25.0% (9th) — Power play — 25.4% (7th)
80.7% (11th) — Penalty kill — 79.1% (15th)
(All stats from this season)
How to watch
When: 8:30 p.m. CT
Where: United Center, Chicago
TV: TNT, TruTV
Webstream: Max
Radio: WGN 720