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Eye for an Eye: Blackhawks at Blues Preview

Oh, these guys again.

Posted on by Dave Melton
Credit: Jeff Curry-Imagn Images

Some more divisional hockey awaits the Blackhawks on Wednesday evening in Missouri, as they’re a long drive down I-55 in St. Louis to face the Blues for a national broadcast.

Yes, this game is starting at 8:30 p.m. due to the national broadcast. Yes, it’s a little annoying.

Speaking of annoying: the Blues! St. Louis has a pair of wins in its first three games, most recently a 5-2 win over the Vancouver Canucks on Monday night. The Blues recovered with a pair of wins in Canada — also beating Calgary — after Minnesota embarrassed St. Louis 5-0 in the Blues’ season and home opener last Thursday. It’s hard to know exactly what to expect from the Blues this season. Yes, they have a very good coach in Jim Montgomery, who joined the team in the middle of the prior season when they had a 9-12-1 record and guided them to a 35-18-7 record the rest of the way, allowing the Blues to reach the postseason. That’s performance under Montgomery equates to a 105-point season over a full 82, although the roster may not be indicative of a team that’s quite that good.

St. Louis has plenty of talent up front. Youngsters Jimmy Snuggerud and Jake Neighbours are still working to prove their worthy of top-six time but more established scorers like Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou will be among the top scorers all season. Dylan Holloway had a breakout season in 2024-25 after an offer sheet pulled him away from Edmonton and Pavel Buchnevich has pretty consistently been a 60ish-point guy for several seasons now, even if age is going to catch up with him soon now that he’s 30. The blue line starts to raise some questions, though, because the top trio of Justin Faulk, Cam Fowler and Colton Parayko are all on the wrong side of 30 and regression could arrive quite harshly for each of them. Young Philip Broberg — who was also offer-sheeted away from Edmonton along with Holloway — provides a competent blue-liner with plenty of hockey ahead of him. But how well that blue line holds up over the course of another 82-game season — and potentially into the postseason — will likely decide much of St. Louis’ fate this season. Oh, and Jordan Binnington is once again in the St. Louis net, where he’ll continue to be the whiniest baby in the league. He’s not the anticipated starter in this game, though:

As for the Hawks, news from the pregame skate took on a much more serious tone due to the real-life update involving captain Nick Foligno:

Blackhawks captain Nick Foligno is taking a brief leave of absence as his daughter undergoes follow-up surgery related to her congenital heart disease.

— Mark Lazerus (@marklazerus.bsky.social) October 15, 2025 at 10:38 AM

Milana Foligno turned 12 yesterday. She's had two valve-replacement surgeries already, one when she was less than a month old. The Folignos are ambassadors for the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.

— Mark Lazerus (@marklazerus.bsky.social) October 15, 2025 at 10:54 AM

All the best to the Foligno family, especially to Milana.

With Foligno out, Lukas Reichel appears to be slotting back in the fourth line. Sam Lafferty may be up in the press box for this one alongside Landon Slaggert, who was back at practice on Tuesday but remains on IR and is yet to make his season debut.

Never a bad night to beat the Blues.

Let’s go Hawks.

Tale of the Tape

Blackhawks — Statistic — Blues
44.09% (32nd) — 5-on-5 Corsi For — 48.47% (22nd)
43.03% (32nd) — 5-on-5 Expected goals for — 49.27% (21st)
2.73 (26th) — Goals per game — 3.05 (13th)
3.56 (31st) — Goals against per game — 2.82 (11th)
44.8% (31st) — Faceoffs — 51.6% (10th)
24.9% (7th) — Power play — 22.1% (16th)
79.3% (14th) — Penalty kill — 74.4% (27th)
(All stats from last season)

How to watch

When: 8:30 p.m. CT
Where: Enterprise Center, St. Louis
TV: TNT
Webstream: HBO/Max/whatever the hell they’re calling the app this week
Radio: WGN 720

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