In their final night at home before a six-game road trip, the Blackhawks will host the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday night at the United Center. It’s a slightly atypical 7:45 p.m. start as part of the NHL’s “Frozen Frenzy,” when all 32 teams will skate in 16 games with start times between 5 and 10 p.m. CT, making for the perfect evening to get well acquainted with your living room seat of choice.
While team captain Brady Tkachuk remains sidelined following thumb surgery a few weeks ago that’s limited him to just three games this season, Ottawa’s recovered from a 2-4-1 start with a trio of victories in the last week, including back-to-back seven-goal outings. The Senators thumped the Capitals 7-1 at home on Saturday night and then lit up the Bruins 7-2 on Monday night, which means this is another team arriving in Chicago after playing elsewhere the night before. A quartet of players in their mid-20s are driving the Senators offense, each with 10 points: Drake Batherson (4 G, 6 A), Tim Stutzle (4 G, 6 A), Dylan Cozens (6 G, 4 A) and leading goal scorer Shane Pinto (8 G, 2 A). The blue line is paced by blossoming Jake Sanderson, who’s right behind that forward group with nine points (1 G, 8 A) while Claude Giroux continues to spit in the face of Father Time with eight points (2 G, 6 A) in 10 games despite being 37 years old. The Senators also boast the league’s best power play at a probably unsustainable 35.1 percent conversation rate, so offense appears to be the team’s driving force at the moment.
And it’ll need to be, because the goaltending has been pretty terrible so far. Neither starter Linus Ullmark (4-3-1 record, .870 save percentage, 3.11 goals-against average) nor backup Leevi Merilainen (1-1-0, .833, 4.57) have been any good this season, so the Ottawa offense may need to outscore its goaltending gaffes if it hopes to return to the playoffs again come 2026. With Merilainen facing the Bruins on Monday night, it seems like Ullmark will be the starter for this game, although there was no morning skate for confirmation of that. Regardless of who the netminder is, it does seem like the Blackhawks will have opportunities to get on the scoreboard. And it’ll probably need to do that, given the current heater that the Ottawa offense is riding.
Here was the Senators lineup from that Boston game:
Senators lines per @brucegarrioch.bsky.social Cousins-Stutzle-Batherson Greig-Cozens-Perron Amadio-Pinto-Giroux MacDermid-Eller-Zetterlund Sanderson-Zub Chabot-Jensen Kleven-Matinpalo Merilainen
— lineslineslines.bsky.social (@lineslineslines.bsky.social) October 27, 2025 at 6:16 PM
As for the Blackhawks, their most recent outing was a deflating 3-1 loss at home to the LA Kings on Sunday, a game in which the visitors sucked the life out of the home team — and the building — by clogging up the neutral zone and preventing the youthful Hawks side from spending much of any time in the offensive zone. This game seems to be a little more free-wheeling on paper, which would be infinitely more interesting to watch than Sunday’s snoozer.
The injury during to Ilya Mikheyev in that Sunday game — along with Tyler Bertuzzi’s continued injury absence — have thrown the forward lines into a bit of flux. Here’s a sample of what things looked like during Monday’s practice:
Blackhawks are rolling these forward lines in drills: Greene-Bedard-Burakovsky Donato-Nazar-Teravainen Dach-Dickinson-Slaggert Foligno-Lafferty
— CHGO Blackhawks (@chgo-blackhawks.bsky.social) October 27, 2025 at 11:14 AM
Greene on the top line is something new, although it’s fair to wonder if a guy who’s projected as a bottom-six role in the long-term belongs on a line with two offensively gifted players like Bedard and Burakovsky. To be fair, though, options are limited there. Tuesday’s morning skate was an optional one so no clarity was provided regarding lineup composition, and Blashill remained noncommittal on the availability of his two injured veteran forwards:
Blashill is here. Mikheyev is "feeling better." Bertuzzi was also "right there." Decisions will be made later on both regarding their availability for tonight.
— Second City Hockey (@secondcityhockey.bsky.social) October 28, 2025 at 11:21 AM
Spencer Knight was in the starter’s crease, though, so that seems to be one logical conclusion to draw from the morning skate. Everything else is anyone’s guess.
Oh, and there was a familiar face in the crowd at the morning skate, too:
Hello from the morning skate. Niklas Hjalmarsson is here.
— Second City Hockey (@secondcityhockey.bsky.social) October 28, 2025 at 10:43 AM
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It’ll be interesting to see how the Hawks rebound from Sunday’s defeat after the buzz emanating from 1901 W. Madison following a win streak earlier this month. Another opponent with likely heavy legs at the start awaits, so perhaps the Blackhawks take more advantage of that than they did against LA and pile in two or three goals against this opponent before it has a chance to wake up.
Let’s go Hawks.
Tale of the Tape
Blackhawks — Statistic — Senators
44.09% (32nd) — 5-on-5 Corsi For — 50.08% (15th)
43.03% (32nd) — 5-on-5 Expected goals for — 49.39% (19th)
2.73 (26th) — Goals per game — 2.95 (18th)
3.56 (31st) — Goals against per game — 2.83 (13rd)
44.8% (31st) — Faceoffs — 53.1% (4th)
24.9% (7th) — Power play — 23.8% (11th)
79.3% (14th) — Penalty kill — 77.7% (19th)
(All stats from last season)
How to watch
When: 7:45 p.m. CT
Where: United Center, Chicago
TV: CHSN
Webstream: ESPN+
Radio: WGN 720