Fresh off their disappointing Saturday afternoon game against the Nashville Predators the Chicago Blackhawks will square off against the scuffling Buffalo Sabres early Sunday evening.
The game itself is a part of the Hawks’ “Hockey Fights Cancer” night, which includes the team’s annual “Purple Carpet” event as well as a series of in-game activities to show support for cancer survivors as well as anyone currently battling the disease.
This Sabres team should serve as a stark reminder to us all that amassing a bunch of high-end draft picks doesn’t automatically pave the way to contention. They currently run out a roster filled with two recent No. 1 overall picks in Rasmus Dahlin and Owen Power (no way I’m including Erik Johnson, but thank you again for that one for forever, St. Louis), as well as multiple other top-ten selections in Dylan Cozens, Jeff Skinner, Casey Middlestadt, and Tyson Jost, and yet they’re still trying to turn the proverbial corner toward establishing themselves as a playoff team, which they haven’t been in 12 seasons now dating back to 2010-11 — although last year’s team finished a single point behind Florida for the final spot.
You can chalk some of Buffalo’s early season frustrations up to injury, as they’ve already lost Cozens, Alex Tuch, and Connor Bedard’s old running buddy Zach Benson for multiple games, and forward Jack Quinn has yet to even suit up this season. Their latest health challenge will be be finding a way to survive without their best offensive weapon and No. 1 center/scorer Tage Thompson, who injured his wrist during their game last Tuesday and is considered week-to-week (though Coach Don Granato said he expects Thompson to be out for at least a month).
The Sabres are in the bottom third of the league in possession (48.55 CF%), expected goals (48.13 GF%), and generating high danger chances (46.55 HDCF%), and it’s hard to imagine any of those numbers improving anytime soon without Thompson. Their scoring this season (2.88 goals per game) is down considerably compared to last season (3.57), and their power play has cratered, currently converting at a 10.64% rate (which is somehow worse than the Blackhawks 12.5%) as opposed to last year’s 23.42% mark, which was ninth best in the league.
Even though they’re allowing almost half a goal less per game this season (3.25 GAA vs 3.62 GAA) their goaltending is still a major question mark. Buffalo had high hopes that rookie Devon Levi would come out strong and cement himself as their No. 1 goalie of the future but he’s still very much a work in progress with an .881 save percentage and 3.65 goals-against (both of which are pretty close to Arvid Soderblom’s numbers, which I think we can all agree are very disappointing at this point). Their best goalie has been Eric Comrie, but he’s dealt with his own injury issues and him and his wife are expecting a new baby any day now. Comrie got the start in their game on Saturday night against the Winnipeg Jets so look for Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen to get the crease on Sunday (big respect to the Sabres’ beat writers who have to type that name out on a regular basis).
For whatever reason, the Sabres seem to be a better team on the road and this will be the second game of their longest trip of the season so far (three games). Last season, they thrived away from Buffalo to the tune of a 25-13-3 record, but so far this season they’re 3-4-1. They’re currently in the midst of a three-game losing streak, and I’d expect their lineup to be close to the one they used against the Jets last night:
As for the Blackhawks, they’re still searching for the consistency button and I think we have to prepare ourselves for the reality that they might not find it this season. After a pair of solid (and fun!) games against Tampa Bay and Florida last weekend they’ve had two pretty frustrating losses in-a-row now where they’ve failed to really generate much of anything.
The lineup will be exactly the same as the one they ran out against the Perds yesterday:
Except Petr Mrazek will get the net tonight:
The Blackhawks did make one roster move this morning, as they activated Nikita Zaitsev and returned Filip Roos to Rockford.
Let’s go, Hawks.
How to watch
When: 6:00 p.m. CT
Where: United Center, Chicago, IL
TV: NBCSCH
Webstream: ESPN+/Hulu
Radio: WGN 720