The Blackhawks return home from a largely successful road trip to find one of the league’s early front-runners waiting for them, as the New Jersey Devils will be Chicago’s opponent for a national broadcast from the United Center on Wednesday night.
The NHL standings contain a hilarious slog of teams in the middle, with 24 teams occupying spots 5-28 in the league standings that have season totals between 17 and 22 points right now — the Blackhawks among them at 19. New Jersey is just above this mess, checking in at 23 points (11-4-1) through 16 games with a dazzling home record of 7-0-1. The Devils are just 4-4-0 on the road, though, so this seems like as good a place as any to face a team that lost its first game of the season and then won eight in a row. NJ has only cooled off slightly since then with victories in three of its last five, although it did fall 3-2 in overtime on Monday night at home against the New York Islanders before embarking on a five-game road trip that begins with this trek to Chicago.
All the usual suspects top the Devils’ stat columns: Jack Hughes leads the team in both goals (10) and poitns (18) after a season-ending injury last March cut short his 2024-25 campaign. There’s also Jesper Bratt (5 G, 11 A in 16 games), Dawson Mercer (8 and 7 in 15), Timo Meier (5 and 8 in 13) and Nico Hischier (3 and 8 in 11) producing at solid-or-better rates, providing a strong offensive thrust up front. The blue line is currently without Dougie Hamilton, who did not join the team on this road trip after leaving last Thursday’s game against Montreal with an injury. But it still has a decent enough base in two youngsters: Simon Nemec (1 G, 8 A, 17:47 ATOI) and Luke Hughes (8 A, team-high 22:42 ATOI) alongside veterans Brett Pesce and Jonas Seigenthaler.
Injury issues have appeared in net as well, where Jacob Markstrom has been limited to just six starts but hasn’t been all that good with a 4-2-1 record, 3.82 goals-against average and .872 save percentage. Jake Allen — remember him?! — has been the better goalie thus far with numbers of 6-2-0, 2.29 and .914, respectively. Markstrom did return to the ice on Monday, though and has been trending in a more positive direction after some rough outings earlier in the season, most notably an 8-4 loss in Colorado where he was on the ice for all eight goals.
Even if the goaltending may be a question mark here, New Jersey has been playing quite well to start this season and boasts enough diversity in its attack that the Blackhawks youthful defense will need to bring its best to the UC for this game or risk being run out of the building. The lineup from NJ’s morning skate is below:
As for the Blackhawks, injuries have forced some lineup changes, based on the morning skate. Landon Slaggert is being called up from Rockford and may skate as injuries to Frank Nazar and Jason Dickinson are expected to keep them sidelined while Andrew Burakovsky is a gametime decision, according to coach Jeff Blashill. Spencer Knight is expected to be in net after manning the starter’s crease earlier in the day, hoping to guide the Hawks to something that hasn’t happened in a few years around these parts:
#Blackhawks are searching for their 4th consecutive win tonight, something they haven't done since February 2023 when they won 5 in a row.
— Charlie Roumeliotis (@CRoumeliotis) November 12, 2025
The longest winning streak they've had in the previous 2 seasons was 3 games.
Some lineup absences and a tough opponent will make that task a difficult one, but it’s certainly not impossible. After a little time away from the UC, Chicago has eight of its next nine games at home with some weaker opponents visiting the Windy City during that time.
What’s that old hockey wisdom about being in a playoff spot by Thanksgiving?
Let’s go Hawks.
Tale of the Tape
Blackhawks — Statistic — Devils
44.09% (32nd) — 5-on-5 Corsi For — 51.31% (8th)
43.03% (32nd) — 5-on-5 Expected goals for — 51.38% (10th)
2.73 (26th) — Goals per game — 2.93 (20th)
3.56 (31st) — Goals against per game — 2.68 (5th)
44.8% (31st) — Faceoffs — 49.8% (19th)
24.9% (7th) — Power play — 28.2% (3rd)
79.3% (14th) — Penalty kill — 82.7% (2nd)
(All stats from last season)
How to watch
When: 8:30 p.m. CT (puck drop likely around 8:52 p.m.)
Where: United Center, Chicago
TV: TNT
Webstream: HBO/Max/whatever it’s called this week
Radio: WGN 720