The Blackhawks will take the ice at the United Center for the first time on Thursday night, hosting the San Jose Sharks for the home opener following a four-game road trip to open the season.
This game had an obvious attraction once the schedule was released as it presented the first chance for an on-ice encounter between 2023 No. 1 overall pick Connor Bedard and 2024 No. 1 overall pick Macklin Celebrini. That’ll have to wait for another time, though, as the latter was injured during San Jose’s first game of the season and is now on injured reserve. Celebrini still managed a pair of points (1 G, 1 A) in 17:35 of ice time in his NHL debut, though, looking very much like the top-line prospect he was billed as leading into the draft. Behind Celebrini there’s Will Smith, who went fourth overall in the 2023 draft and could be the Sharks’ No. 2 center for the next decade-plus behind Celebrini, giving San Jose a pretty potent 1-2 punch atop its forward group. He’s without a point in three games while skating just 12:19 a night so far, but all of those numbers figure to trend northward as the season unfolds. Franchise staples Logan Couture and Marc-Edouard Vlasic are still around but on injured reserve, with Couture still hampered by the groin issue that limited him to just six games last season.
Beyond that? Not much to write about. Tyler Toffoli currently leads the team with three points (2 G, 1 A) in three games because someone has to do that. The rest of the roster looks like a ton of players who were mid/late first-round picks that never really flourished with the teams that drafted them: Klim Kostin (2017, St. Louis), Luke Kunin (2016, Minnesota), Ty Dellandrea (2018, Dallas) and more. Old friend Jan Rutta is skating 20 minutes a night for this side and he’s now 34 years old, so now that should explain a lot about where this team is at the moment. Mackenzie Blackwood and Vitek Vanecek are the San Jose goalie duo here like they were for New Jersey two seasons prior after taking turns having subpar seasons that led to their departures from the east coast.
Overall, this was a team that was picked to be among the league’s worst at just about every place that gets into the prediction game, and now the No. 1 center is on the shelf. There’s no such thing as a “must-win” game for the Blackhawks this season but looking at the lineup below suggests this is a game that Chicago probably should win.
As for the Blackhawks’ lineup, it’s going to include Lukas Reichel for the first time this season, although saddling him with a pair of plodding fourth-liners doesn’t seem like it’s going to help his situation much. But coach Luke Richardson has seemed with please with the overall performance from the other three lines, so here we are:
The other development from the morning skate comes from the second tweet there, with veteran Alec Martinez suddenly sidelined by a lower-body injury that will be getting a closer look later this afternoon. That injury means both Wyatt Kaiser and Nolan Allan will be in the lineup, although not on the same pairings.
Although the fourth-line position isn’t ideal, Reichel at least sounded like someone motivated to make the most out of the opportunity he’s been given to get back in the lineup:
Reichel won’t be getting any power-play time yet, either, based on the morning skate:
It’s the first home game of the season against a opponent that can be considered inferior, which is going to be an extremely rare occurrence this season. Starting off the schedule at 1901 W. Madison isn’t required but it sure would be a nice way to kick things off early in the season, right?
Let’s go Hawks.
Tale of the Tape
Blackhawks — Statistic — Sharks
43.71% (32nd) — 5-on-5 Corsi For — 43.82% (31st)
42.37% (31st) — 5-on-5 Expected goals for — 41.82% (32nd)
2.17 (32nd) — Goals per game — 2.20 (31st)
3.52 (29th) — Goals against per game — 3.98 (32nd)
46.3% (29th) — Faceoffs — 49.0% (22nd)
16.60% (28th) — Power play — 20.2% (21st)
75.76% (27th) — Penalty kill — 75.4% (28th)
(All stats from last season)
How to Watch
When: 7:30 p.m. CT
Where: United Center, Chicago
TV: CHSN (How to Watch) And if this stuff isn’t sorted out by November we may start posting a lengthy list of places to pirate streams of the game for free. Only, like, sorta kidding.
Webstream: ESPN+
Radio: WGN 720