The suddenly competent Chicago Blackhawks head into the second game of a weekend of afternoon back-to-backs against the Minnesota Wild on Sunday afternoon after Petr Mrazek helped them steal one against the Dallas Stars (in both ridiculous and animated fashion) on Saturday.
The Hawks have gone 8-6 in their last 14 games (and are 4-1 in their last five at home), and with just six games left (three here, and three on the road), they’re within spitting distance of the end of the season. For as bad as this year has been, if they were to win out at home (which feels slightly unlikely as they still have Nashville and Carolina left), they’d end up with a winning record at the United Center this season.
Minnesota comes in with their wild card hopes clinging to life support and, after a 4-2 loss against the Jets last night, the Hawks can officially put them out of their misery and eliminate them with a victory on Sunday. The Wild have a 4-5-1 record in their last 10, and have faded down the stretch after vaulting themselves back into a playoff spot in February. The fact they’ve gone a combined 0-9-1 against the three teams at the top of the Central (Colorado, Dallas, and Winnipeg) certainly hasn’t helped their cause, and any season where they don’t make the playoffs at this point has to be seen as an abject failure for them.
We all know the major narrative surrounding these two particular teams at this point — Connor Bedard versus Brock Faber for the Calder — and I’m not going to give it that much more runway because it’s a complete non-argument. If every single NHL GM was given the choice between those two players, not a single one of them would pick Faber over Bedard, including Faber’s own GM Bill Guerin.
Better luck next year, Minnesota. I’ll look forward to reading your arguments when Blackhawks’ forward Macklin Celebrini is tearing the entire league a new one while Jesper Wallstedt is leading your team back to the playoffs so you can lose to the Stars in the first round again (For the record, do you know how long it’s been since the same team had a Calder winner two years in a row? It hasn’t happened since Bobby Orr and Derek Sanderson did it for the Bruins in 1967 and 1968).
Bedard continues to be the brightest star on a team full of meh, and it’s been a minute since he’s had one of THOSE games, so it would be nice to see him go off against Minnesota (and Faber) and send them back to the land of a thousand lakes to start reserving tee times for this summer.
Minnesota should run out a pretty similar lineup to the one they used last night against the Jets, though LOCAL GUY Ryan Hartman is eligible to return from his three-game suspension today and should draw back into their top-six. And it’s already been confirmed that the aforementioned Wallstedt will be getting his second NHL start.
As for the Hawks — if it’s only 85% broke, don’t fix it, amirite?!? Their lines should also be similar to yesterday:
Though one possible change could be Taylor Raddysh returning after Luke Richardson made him a healthy scratch for the first time this season:
And Arvid Soderblom will get the net:
There’s something a little extra enjoyable about being a spoiler and ending someone else’s playoff hopes after yours have already been dead for weeks now (though in reality they were never even alive this season).
Let’s go, Hawks.
Tale of the Tape
Blackhawks — Statistic — Wild
44.40% (31st) — 5-on-5 Corsi For — 49.76% (19th)
43.35% (31st) — 5-on-5 Expected goals for — 50.79% (16th)
2.20 (t-31st) — Goals per game — 3.01 (13th)
3.48 (28th) — Goals against per game — 3.16 (14th)
46.3% (30th) — Faceoffs — 47.4% (25th)
16.2% (29th) — Power play — 21.2% (16th)
77.4% (22nd) — Penalty kill — 74.1% (29th)
How to Watch
When: 2:30 p.m.
Where: United Center, Chicago, IL
TV: NBC Sports Chicago
Webstream: ESPN+
Radio: WGN 720