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Ho Hey: Blackhawks at Avalanche Preview

The Blackhawks are back on the road. And they’re bringing a top prospect with them for his NHL debut.

Posted on by L_B_R
Credit: Isaiah J. Downing-Imagn Images

The Chicago Blackhawks are currently riding a five-game point streak, which is their best run of the season, but they’ll be facing their toughest opponent of this stretch yet on Monday night: a surging Colorado Avalanche team.

There’s big news with the Blackhawks to address in a minute but we’ll start with the Avalanche, who have bested Chicago’s recent five-game point streak with decisive victories in their last five games, outscoring opponents 28-11. This includes the touchdown and extra point Colorado scored in its last game: a 7-4 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs that featured a hat trick from Valeri Nichushkin. Colorado has also been one of the best statistical 5-on-5 teams during their current run — they’ve owned 56.79 percent of the shot attempts and 57.86 percent of the expected goals — and dominated on the power play — they’ve scored a league-leading nine power-play goals (out of 15 opportunities). Only the Florida Panthers have a better goal share (80 percent) than the Avalanche (71.79) on their current surge.

The Avalanche also have a new look since the last time the Blackhawks saw them back in January. First, their second-leading producer, Mikko Rantanen, was traded to the Carolina Hurricanes for Martin Necas, who has stepped in pretty seamlessly with 16 points (5 G, 11 A) in 15 games while playing over 21 minutes a night for Colorado. They’ve also added Jack Drury, who is not a prolific scorer (just four assists in the same span) but is a useful checking player. The Avalanche also made a flurry of acquisitions ahead of and on the trade deadline last week. They picked up Ryan Lindgren and Jimmy Vesey (from the New York Rangers), Brock Nelson (from the New York Islanders), Charlie Coyle (from Boston), and Erik Johnson (from Philadelphia). Lindgren, Nelson, and Coyle have all picked up points with the Avalanche, though their sample is obviously still very small. Colorado also moved out Casey Mittelstadt, who had been solid for them with 0.54 point-per-game rate, and Calvin de Haan, who’d been playing bottom-pair minutes for them.

That’s a pretty good group of pick-ups to add to a team that already boasts the first player this season to reach 100 points in Nathan MacKinnon, and the top producing defensemen who hit 20 goals and 75 points in Cale Makar. Colorado also has four other forwards near or above a 0.5 point-per-game rate in Jonathan Drouin (0.90), Nichushkin (0.88), Artturi Lehkonen (0.77), and Ross Colton (0.48). Devon Toews, Samuel Girard, and Josh Manson continue to be a strong defensive forces on the back end, though only the former racks up many points (he has a 0.52 PPG rate).

Coming off a strong win, the Avalanche are unlikely to change up their lineup much from the last game (see below). The only changes are Erik Johnson possibly skating on defense and Scott Wedgewood as the starting goalie against the Blackhawks. The latter has a .916 save percentage in 11 games with Colorado.

As mentioned above, the Blackhawks are on one of their best runs in terms of results, going 3-0-2 in their last five games. Obviously, a lot of that success has hinged on their goaltending duo of Spencer Knight and Arvid Soderblom, who have combined for the fifth best team save percentage of .922 in that span. That’s especially impressive considering the two faced the second most shots per 60 (35.03) and fifth highest expected goals rate (3.56). Still, some credit needs to be given to the skaters in front of their netminders: they’re making the most of their offensive opportunities and helped make sure the team hasn’t lost in regulation in March. Knight will be the goalie in this game, per the morning skate.

In their latest game, the Blackhawks lost 3-2 in overtime to the Nashville Predators on Saturday, but really it was more like they lost to Steven Stamkos, who scored all three goals against, rather than the whole Preds team. Ilya Mikheyev and Alex Vlasic tallied the two Blackhawks goals: the former has goals in back-to-back games and six points (4 G, 2 A) over his last six games while the defenseman has four points (1 G, 3 A) over his last six games. Connor Bedard, Ryan Donato, Colton Dach, and Connor Murphy each picked up an assist as well while Soderblom made 38 saves on 41 shots for a .927 save percentage. With those assists, Bedard has three points (1 G, 2 A) in his last two games and Donato extended his point streak to eight games (4 G, 7 A).

But the biggest news of the day concerning Chicago is that 2024 No. 2 overall pick Artyom Levshunov will be making his NHL debut. He’s going to skate on the third line alongside Alec Martinez, while Jason Dickinson is expected to return from injury. It’s odd that he’s suddenly skating 1) at wing and 2) on the top line with Connor Bedard when he’s been more effective at center in a more defensive-oriented role this season.

Levshunov makes his NHL debut tonight against Colorado and Dickinson also returns. Blackhawks lines: Dach-Bedard-Dickinson Teravainen-Donato-Mikheyev Slaggert-Nazar-Foligno Bertuzzi-Veleno-Reichel Vlasic-Kaiser Del Mastro-Murphy Martinez-Levshunov Knight

— Ben Pope (@benpopecst.bsky.social) March 10, 2025 at 1:36 PM

Tale of the Tape

Blackhawks — Statistic — Avalanche
43.69% (32nd) — 5-on-5 Corsi For — 53.95% (3rd)
42.54% (32nd) — 5-on-5 Expected goals for — 51.88% (10th)
2.77 (24th) — Goals per game — 3.36 (6th)
3.47 (29th) — Goals against per game — 2.95 (16th)
44.6% (31st) — Faceoffs — 45.7% (30th)
25.7% (7th) — Power play — 24.2% (8th)
80.9% (13th) — Penalty kill — 79.0% (16th)
(All stats from this season)

How to watch

When: 8 p.m. CT
Where: Ball Arena, Denver
TV: CHSN
Webstream: ESPN+
Radio: WGN 720

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