It was only a week ago when the Chicago Blackhawks last faced the Tampa Bay Lightning, but this time they’ll do it at the United Center, hoping to get back in the win column in front of their home crowd.
The Lightning have had a rocky start to the season by their standards, going just 6-6-4 and landing in fifth place in the Atlantic Division. They’re also coming off of three losses in a row: first 5-3 to the Blackhawks last Thursday, followed by a pair of shutouts: 4-0 by the Carolina Hurricanes and 5-0 by the St. Louis Blues on Saturday and Tuesday, respectively. The Hurricanes game isn’t surprising considering Carolina’s been one of the best regular-season puck-possession powerhouses in the league for years, but the losses to the Blues and Blackhawks, especially with the allowance of five goals against in each game, was a bit more of an outlier. The Lightning still dictated play by owning around 59 percent of the shot attempts and 60 percent of the expected goals at 5-on-5 in both games, but the Lightning are having bad luck with finding the back of the net and their save percentage hasn’t been close to .900 in any recent games.
Lightning coach John Copper said that the effort has been there for his team, but that execution and mental mistakes have cost them during this three-game losing streak.
The good news for the Lightning is that Andrei Vasilevskiy (back) has been back on the ice since Monday and has been practicing with the team this week, including Wednesday in Chicago. It’s unknown if he will be the starter against the Blackhawks, though.
Line for the Lightning for Thursday are expected to be the following:
These are similar to the lines the Blackhawks faced last week with some minor tweaks. Anthony Cirelli was moved up to the second line and Tyler Motte was added to that checking third line in his place. Defense pairings are the same, which means defenseman Erik Cernak is expected to make his return to the lineup after missing Tuesday’s game against the Blues with an undisclosed injury.
On a softer note, former Blackhawks player Brandon Hagel stopped to chat with reporters about how Chicago is still quite special to him:
With their sporadic November schedule, the Blackhawks have only played in one game since they last met up with the Lightning: the loss 4-3 to the Florida Panthers on Saturday, a rough game that was only made entertaining by two Connor Bedard goals. The game in Sunrise was actually the Blackhawks’ fourth worst shot attempt (36.96 percent) and expected goals (38.94) performance at 5-on-5 so far, yet it was a close affair on the scoreboard where they could have even stolen a point if Tyler Johnson managed to hit that chance in the final seconds (you know the one). Jason Dickinson scored the other goal for the Blackhawks after a slick pass from Lukas Reichel.
The Blackhawks held an optional skate Thursday morning, so there wasn’t a lot of new information that differed from our Blackhawks Bits on Wednesday. As noted there, Taylor Hall did practice with the second line but will not play against Tampa:
There was some more information given on other missing or sidelined players following Thursday’s practice, though. First, after missing Wednesday’s practice for undisclosed personal reasons, Nikita Zaitsev was placed on the non-roster list and he’s expected to be out until at least next week. The Blackhawks recalled Filip Roos from the Rockford IceHogs to fill Zaitsev’s roster spot, though Roos isn’t expected to play on Thursday.
Next, coach Luke Richardson said that Andreas Athanasiou and Jarred Tinordi (oblique) are both considered week-to-week and haven’t even started skating. Tinordi was placed on IR last week retroactive to Nov. 9 (when he was first injured) on the same day Issak Phillips was recalled, so Tinordi wasn’t expected to be back for a while. But it’s the first time we’ve gotten news that Athanasiou will be out for some time.
So with the injuries and some line shuffling — including Lukas Reichel’s move back to center — the Blackhawks lines at morning skate were:
How to Watch
When: 7 p.m. CT
Where: United Center, Chicago
TV: N/A (This is an ESPN+/Hulu exclusive)
Webstream: ESPN+/Hulu
Radio: WGN 720