The Blackhawks will continue their search for the first win of their lengthy road trip in British Columbia on Wednesday night when they face the Vancouver Canucks.
It’s the first repeat opponent of the season for the Hawks, as these two teams met a few weeks ago in Chicago and the visitors skated away with both points following a 3-2 shootout defeat for the home side. The Hawks had a 2-0 lead in that game after one period that was gone by the second intermission, part of a season-long trend of wonky second periods. The Blackhawks controlled most of the play in that game with a 56.3 percent shot attempt share and 59.9 percent expected goal share at 5-on-5 play, numbers that are in line with the Blackhawks’ recent performances despite the team’s current three-game losing streak.
Vancouver’s been up and down since that victory over Chicago. It beat Washington a few nights later, then lost three in a row, then have alternated wins and losses for the last five games, most recently a 5-4 OT win over the Predators in Nashville on Monday night. Injuries have piled up for the Canucks lately, with five players on injured reserve and two more of the day-to-day variety, including top scorer Conor Garland, who hasn’t played since Oct. 28. Garland is expected to return for this game, though, joining an offense that also features Elias Pettersson (10 points in 14 games), Kiefer Sherwood (nine points — all goals in 14 games) and Brock Boeser (9 in 12). The blue line has Quinn Hughes highlighted on its marquee, boasting an almost comical average ice time of 26:46 that leads the NHL, so expect to see plenty of No. 43 in this game as he continues to be one of the most electric players the league has to offer.
We also have a potential Lukas Reichel revenge game on our hands, as the former Blackhawks first-round pick will face his former mates for the first time this evening. However, Reichel has done a whole lot of nothing since coming to Vancouver. His ice time has gone from an average of 9:52 in five games with Chicago this season to 15:55 in six games since the trade but he does not have a single point with the Canucks after tallying four (2 G, 2 A) during that limited stint in Chicago. So, of course, he’ll have six points by the second period of this game.
Lukas Reichel went out to dinner with 14 of his former Blackhawks teammates last night here in Vancouver, but there won’t be any friendship tonight.
— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) November 5, 2025
“I want to show that the Canucks made the right move.”
Speaking of old friends, Kevin Lankinen is expected to be the Vancouver starter for this game. No lines to report from a Vancouver morning skate so here’s the lineup from that Nashville game, with Reichel in at 2C:
Canucks lines per @batchhockey.bsky.social Kane. EP40. Sherwood. DeBrusk. Reichel. Boeser. O’Connor. Räty. MacEachern. Bains. Sasson. Karlsson. Hughes. Myers. MP29. Hronek. EP25. Willander. 🥅#DemkoTime 🥅
— lineslineslines.bsky.social (@lineslineslines.bsky.social) November 3, 2025 at 7:10 PM
As for the Hawks, there’s not much new to report from the last 48 hours. Oliver Moore remains up while Jason Dickinson remains on IR, so the lineup will probably be similar to what was on the ice against Seattle on Monday night. The only change will be in net, with Spencer Knight as the expected starter. Switch the netminders around and the lines below will probably be on the ice in Vancouver:
Blackhawks in warmups: Greene-Bedard-Burakovsky Teräväinen-Nazar-Bertuzzi Moore-Donato-Mikheyev Foligno-Dach Vlasic-Rinzel Kaiser-Levshunov Grzelcyk-Murphy Crevier Söderblom Knight I like this spot for Oliver Moore, two good players for him to skate with.
— Mark Lazerus (@marklazerus.bsky.social) November 3, 2025 at 8:37 PM
Even if the Hawks haven’t been winning as much recently, the underlying numbers suggest the team has been playing fairly well at 5-on-5, so perhaps a little hard luck is catching up to the team recently after more fortunate circumstances helped them more in the season’s first month. Chicago has generated plenty of shots and chances in the last few games but hasn’t been quite as successful at putting the puck in the net. Only takes one game for those fortunes to change, though.
Let’s go Hawks.
Tale of the Tape
Blackhawks — Statistic — Canucks
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: 9 p.m. CT
Where: Rogers Arena, Vancouver
TV: CHSN
Webstream: ESPN+
Radio: WGN 720