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Don’t Be Denied: Blackhawks at Jets Preview

The road trip to open the season continues.

Credit: Terrence Lee-USA TODAY Sports

The Chicago Blackhawks continue their four-game road trip with a stop in Winnipeg on Friday night, where they will be the opponent for the Jets’ home opener.

The Winnipeg Jets opened their 2024-25 season by posting a touchdown against the Edmonton Oilers. Six different players scored for the Jets and Connor Hellebuyck picked up the 38th shutout of his career after making 30 saves. It’s not unusual for the Jets to look strong to start the season, but they really put an exclamation on that point against Edmonton.

Having that many goal scorers is pretty regular for the Jets, as they’ve often been a team that’s offense is more by committee. That said, the team obviously has some stars: Mark Scheifele and Kyle Connor were both near a point-per-game last season with 72 points (25 G, 47 A) in 74 games and 61 points (34 G, 27 A) in 64 games, respectively. Gabriel Vilardi (0.77 points per game) and Nikolaj Ehlers (0.74) produced at top-six quality, Cole Perfetti (0.54) was close, and Josh Morrissey (0.85) contributed from the back end. Winnipeg did lose trade-deadline addition Sean Monahan in the offseason when he signed with Columbus in free agency but the Jets are likely hoping their third line of Nino Niederreiter, Kyle Lowry, and Mason Appleton will build off their strong finish from last season. The trio is off to a great start as they accounted for nine of the 18 points picked up by Jets players against the Oilers.

The obvious strength of the Jets, though, is Hellebuyck in net. He’s coming off his second Vezina Trophy winning season with a .921 save percentage and 33.1 goals saved above expected (according to Money Puck), the latter of which was the best in the league by almost 10 goals.

Lines for the Jets will be the same as against the Oilers:

In comparison to the Jets, the Blackhawks season opener was lackluster: they fell 5-2 on Tuesday to the Utah Hockey Club, a game in which Chicago did mount a decent comeback effort but were unable overcome the three-goal deficit it faces after 30 minutes of play. Connor Bedard led the Blackhawks with two points (both assists), while Teuvo Teravainen and Nick Foligno both scored. Petr Mrazek allowed four goals on 26 shots for save percentage of just .846, but realistically only one was a bad goal.

There was a bit of a narrative post-game that the loss was mostly about the goalies, but that seems disingenuous. Mrazek didn’t have his best game ever, but the real issue was how the Blackhawks didn’t start the game on time. While the effort was admirable in the latter half, the defense was still weak verall. It’s also unknown if this roster has enough offensive personnel to overcome a three-goal deficit regularly. Connor Bedard is Connor Bedard, so we know he’ll produce. But Taylor Hall, Teuvo Teravainen, and Tyler Bertuzzi are the only players to have hit 20 goals in at least three seasons in their careers. Yes, they hit a lot of posts, but that’s what happens with high-effort but low scoring players on the regular. The Blackhawks are going to need to support Mrazek a lot more — by being much better in their first periods defensively and/or by capitalizing on offensive opportunities more often — if they hope to put up a few more wins than last year. The good news is that effort can go a long way, if applied correctly, so the Blackhawks just need to focus from start to finish.

Speaking of the second half of the game, the lines at practice yesterday were basically the ones coach Luke Richardson switched to trying in to get his guys going. The only difference for the forward group will be Andreas Athanasiou taking the place of Craig Smith on the fourth line.

The defensive pairings, however, will basically revert to back to their starting positions, so Seth Jones and Alex Vlasic will start apart from each other — they appear to be a “combined only for emergency” right now. There is one play swap here as well, with Nolan Allan heading to the press box to make room for the season debut of Wyatt Kaiser, who was activated from injured reserve on Thursday.

Arvid Soderblom is expected to be in net.

Taylor Hall was moved to the second power play unit, but it’s still one of the worst assembled in the league.

Tale of the Tape

Blackhawks — Statistic — Winnipeg Jets
43.71% (32nd) — 5-on-5 Corsi For — 51.09% (15th)
42.37% (31st) — 5-on-5 Expected goals for — 51.41% (12th)
2.17 (32nd) — Goals per game — 3.16 (15th)
3.52 (29th) — Goals against per game — 2.41 (T-1st)
46.3% (29th) — Faceoffs — 47.6% (24th)
16.60% (28h) — Power play — 18.8% (22nd)
75.76% (27th) — Penalty kill — 77.1% (21st)
(All stats from last season)

How to Watch

When: 7 p.m. CT
Where: Canada Life Centre, Winnipeg
TV: CHSN (How to Watch)
Webstream: ESPN+
Radio: WGN 720

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