The Chicago Blackhawks wrap up their three-game road trip with a stop in DC to face the Washington Capitals.
Although the Capitals are only five points back of a wild card spot with over 20 games left, they were sellers at Friday’s Trade Deadline, parting ways with forwards Evgeni Kuznetsov and Anthony Mantha as well as defenseman Joel Edmundson, for primarily draft picks. It signaled that the fifth-place Metropolitan team isn’t really targeting the playoffs anymore, though surely the team will still be somewhat competitive down the stretch. Kuznetsov, due to his tenure with the team, was obviously the most discussed trade and left the team with only five players remaining from its 2018 Stanley Cup team: forwards Alex Ovechkin, Tom Wilson, T.J. Oshie (out with an upper-body injury), and Nicklas Backstrom (on LTIR with a hip injury) and defenseman John Carlson.
This will be the Capitals second game without Kuznetsov, whose decline for the last couple of years and major anchor of a contract made him expendable at the organizational level, and they blew out an underperforming Pittsburgh Penguins 6-0 Thursday night. In that game, Alex Ovechkin scored his 840th NHL goal and added an assist to move into sole possession of 15th on the NHL’s all-time points list, passing Paul Coffey. Ovechkin is also second on the team in points with 47 (18 G, 29 A) in 58 games this season, behind Dylan Strome, who has 22 goals and 28 assists in 61 games. After that, it’s a pretty big drop-off in production rates from remaining forwards, with only three — Tom Wilson (27 points), Aliaksei Protas (26 points), and Connor McMichael (24 points) — above a 0.4 point-per-game rate.
On defense, Carlson is still putting up well above average numbers with five goals and 36 assists in 61 games and Rasmus Sandin has been pretty solid for them on the back end, too, with three goals and 17 assists in 53 games.
This lack of offensive depth is why the Captials are sitting in 29th in goals per game (2.67) at this point in the season. It also hurt their once elite power play, which has only a 18.9 percent coverstion rate, good for just 22nd in the league.
The Capitals are going with a similar lineup from the Penguins game when, they put at least one offensive threat on each line. Darcy Kuemper — who has a .893 save-percentage in 28 games this season — will start in net on Saturday night.
The trade deadline was much quieter for the Blackhawks: they traded Anthony Beauvillier to Nashville on Thursday for a fifth-round pick in the 2024 NHL Draft and then sat pat Friday as the rest of the league made moves. Boris Katchouk was also claimed by the Ottawa Senators off waivers Friday. The lack of moves isn’t particularly surprising considering the Blackhawks only had two possible other players — forwards Tyler Johnson and Colin Blackwell — who may have been interesting to other teams as depth options, and they need the bodies as much as they need late-round picks at this point.
Coach Luke Richardson said as much after Thursday’s practice in Chicago, and GM Kyle Davidson commented on the lack of substance of trade calls this week due to the Blackhawks low-value players:
As for the Blackhawks on-ice performance, they finally snapped their 22-game road losing streak on Tuesday with a 5-2 victory over the Arizona Coyotes, scoring a wildly unexpected four power play goals while Arvid Soderblom made 37 saves on 39 shots. Seth Jones also had two goals while T. Johnson picked up three assists in the win. Although it may not happen much the rest of the season, it was certainly nice to see the Blackhawks get into the win column once more.
The Blackhawks opted for an optional morning skate ahead of the Capitals game, but they ran lines on Thursday, so expect something similar to these for Saturday night:
It was also confirmed after the morning skate that Andreas Athanasiou (groin) is not ready to rejoin the team unfortunately, but that Nikita Zaitsev (knee) was. Other roster updates are that Reese Johnson was back in with Beauvillier traded and Petr Mrazek would start in net against the Capitals.
One other note: Taylor Hall (knee surgery) started skating again this past week and, although he still will not rejoin the Blackhawks in games this season, it’s great to see the progression:
Tale of the Tape
Blackhawks — Statistic — Capitals
44.04% (31st) — 5-on-5 Corsi For — 46.83% (25th)
42.76% (31st) — 5-on-5 Expected goals for — 46.97% (27th)
2.05 (32nd) — Goals per game — 2.67 (29th)
3.56 (29th) — Goals against per game — 3.10 (19th)
46.2% (30th) — Faceoffs — 46.8% (29th)
14.5% (29th) — Power play — 18.9% (22nd)
77.5% (21st) — Penalty kill — 79.8% (t-15th)
How to watch
When: 6 p.m. CT
Where: Capital One Arena, Washington, D.C
TV: NBC Sports Chicago
Webstream: ESPN+
Radio: WGN 720