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Cinnamon Girl: Blackhawks vs. Jets Preview

It’s the home finale of the 2024-25 season.

Posted on by L_B_R
Credit: Matt Marton-Imagn Images

As the end of the season nears, the Chicago Blackhawks host the Winnipeg Jets for the last game at the United Center this season.

The Jets currently sit atop the league standings, ahead of the Washington Capitals by three points, and they can secure their position as the winner of the President’s Trophy with a victory in Chicago — a trophy that’d be their first in franchise history. A recent surge in which they’ve gone 7-3-0 in their last 10 games — including two straight victories against the St. Louis Blues (3-1) and the Dallas Stars (4-0) this past week — has helped create some distance between them and the Caps to where they don’t need the decision to come down to the final game — if they can close it out on Saturday.

The strength of the Jets this season has been their team depth as well as staying very healthy. Kyler Connor (1.11 points per game), Mark Scheifele (1.09), and Nikolaj Ehlers (0.93) are all having career years, including the former being a top-10 forward in the NHL this season. Ehlers, who missed 11 games earlier, is the only top-nine forward for the Jets that’s missed more than a few games, too. The Jets then have 25-and-under players Vilardi (0.86) and Cole Perfetti (0.61) contributing at a high level. The rest of the top-nine is below 0.5 PPG but they have plenty of veterans right on the edge — Vladislav Namestnikov (0.48), Adam Lowry (0.48), Nino Niederreiter (0.46) — that also are strong defensively, that it balances out. On defense, Josh Morrissey (0.76) and Neal Pionk (0.55) have come way down offensively as the season has progressed, but the duo still packs a punch from the blue line.

While the Jets tend to score by committee, the top-end talent is especially dangerous on the power power: they’re the second best in the league with the man-advantage (29 percent), helping boost them to the third best offense in the league with 3.39 goals per game. Combined with the exceptional defense and goaltending — their goals against per game rate is 2.29, first in the league — it’s not surprising the Jets are sitting atop the standings.

No word yet on a Winnipeg lineup from the morning skate, but here’s what they did against Dallas on Thursday:

No goalie decision has been confirmed yet but Hellebuyck picked up his 45th win and eighth shutout of the season against the Stars Thursday, both a franchise record, so he may get this night off for a brief rest with the postseason approaching.

The Blackhawks have won two of their last three, including a 4-2 victory over the Boston Bruins on Thursday night. The record over their last 10 still isn’t pretty (3-6-1), but outside of the 5-0 route by the Pittsburgh Penguins on Tuesday, the games as of late have felt more competitive. Not good by any means, but it’s been typically more enjoyable watching the young players create interesting highlights and work through their issues than witnessing veteran players make mistakes left and right as we did earlier in the season. With the Blackhawks all but locked into 31st place in the standings — Chicago would have to lose their final three games and San Jose Sharks win out their for their positions to switch — the Blackhawks might as well try to finish the season more positively with a few more wins, if possible.

In the last five games in particular, the kids have been driving things: Frank Nazar leads with four points (2 G, 2 A), Connor Bedard and Oliver Moore both have three assists, and Sam Rinzel has been playing No. 1 minutes (22:51) in that span. Some of the veterans — most noticeably Ryan Donato and Ilya Mikeyev — have been making big impacts longer than these last handful of games too.

The Blackhawks did lose one of their youngsters Wednesday: they sent Ethan Del Mastro to the AHL.

That led to some changes from small Thursday’s lineup:

Last morning skate at the UC this year Lines and pairs for tonight: Moore-Bedard-Mikheyev Teräväinen-Nazar-Bertuzzi Kurashev-Donato-Foligno Slaggert-Veleno-Maroon Vlasic-Rinzel Martinez-Murphy Kaiser-Levshunov Knight

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— CHGO Blackhawks (@chgo-blackhawks.bsky.social) April 12, 2025 at 9:41 AM

The Blackhawks have lost both matchups against the Jets earlier this season: 2-1 in mid-October and 4-2 in early December.

And one more roster move to note: the Blackhawks just announced the signing of Aidan Thompson, a third-round pick (90th overall) from the 2022 NHL Draft. He’s on his way to Rockford, though, per the team’s press release below.

Tale of the Tape

Blackhawks — Statistic — Jets
44.12% (32nd) — 5-on-5 Corsi For — 50.13% (15th)
43.01% (32nd) — 5-on-5 Expected goals for — 52.69% (6th)
2.70 (27th) — Goals per game — 3.39 (3rd)
3.57 (31st) — Goals against per game — 2.29 (1st)
44.8% (31st) — Faceoffs — 49.3 (21st)
23.8% (11th) — Power play — 29.0% (2nd)
80.3% (11th) — Penalty kill — 79.5% (15th)
(All stats from this season)

How to watch

When: 6 p.m. CT
Where: United Center, Chicago
TV: CHSN, NHLN
Webstream:
Radio: WGN 720

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