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Listen to the Music: Blackhawks at Sharks Preview

An extremely winnable game awaits the Blackhawks on Halloween night.

Credit: Robert Edwards-USA TODAY Sports

A five-game road trip for the Blackhawks continues on Halloween with Chicago in San Jose to face the Sharks on Thursday night.

Each of these teams will enter this one off a victory: the Blackhawks knocked off the Avalanche by a 5-2 score on Monday night, while the Sharks just tallied their second straight — and second in total — win of the season with a 4-2 win over the Los Angeles Kings at home on Tuesday night. San Jose also won in Utah on Monday night for a brief turnaround following its abysmal 0-7-2 start.

Those nine losses to open the season included a 4-2 loss to these Blackhawks in Chicago two weeks ago, and the only thing that’s really changed for these two teams in the weeks since is that they have Ws on the scoreboard in their most recent outings. San Jose is still a woefully inept roster, made further subpar by the continued absence of 2024 No. 1 overall pick Macklin Celebrini, who still hasn’t played since being injured in the season opener. A pair of decent goaltenders in Mackenzie Blackwood and Vitek Vanecek is about the only thing recognizable on this team, although both of those goalies have save percentages under .890 and goals-against averages over 3.5 — a combination of their performances and the rumor of a defense skating in front of them. The leading scorers here are Mikael Granlund (13 points in 11 games) and Tyler Toffoli (10 in 11), each of whom will be remembered for playing in places other than San Jose when their careers come to an end. There isn’t much else to say about this team that wasn’t already detailed in the preview from that aforementioned Oct. 17 game.

Expect a lineup similar to what the Sharks rolled out against LA a few games ago:

It’ll be a similarly consistent lineup in Chicago, with the Blackhawks not changing much at practice on Wednesday from the victorious combinations in Denver:

That includes Lukas Reichel centering the fourth line with Craig Smith and Pat Maroon, with the presence of those two veterans apparently helping Reichel come out of his shell a bit:

San Jose may be feeling a little better after a pair of victories but Chicago still outclasses this team on paper and handled this side rather easily when the two met earlier this month. The Blackhawks should probably be able to do that again, even though it’s in a different venue. A performance similar to the one put together against a far superior side in Colorado on Monday night would be more than enough to skate away from this one with a pair of points.

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: 9:30 p.m. CT
Where: SAP Center, San Jose
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

Talking Points