Ridin’ the Storm Out: Blackhawks at Hurricanes Preview

A stretch of games against top-tier opponents for the Hawks begins on Thursday night in Raleigh against the Carolina Hurricanes.

In the last seven seasons, Carolina has typically resided near the top of the league standings and has made a trio of conference final appearances — but they haven’t been able to clear that last hurdle just yet. This season continues the regular-season portion of that trend, with the Hurricanes all alone atop the Metro with 66 points in 50 games (31-15-4), well ahead of second-place Pittsburgh’s 59 (24-14-11). They’re also tied for second in the league standings with the Tampa Bay Lightning and Detroit Red Wings (ugh). Carolina’s won steadily all season but at a slightly higher clip of late, with seven wins in nine games including the last three in a row, highlighted by a 9-1 dismantling of the Florida Panthers last Friday night. The league’s analytics darlings are at it again, topping the league in both 5-on-5 shot attempt share (60.07 percent) and expected goal share (56.80 percent), while ranking in the top 10 in terms of both goals scored (3.38) and allowed (2.86) per game.

Sebastian Aho is the primary offensive weapon, with 52 points (17 G, 35 A) in 50 games. He’s the only one over a point-per-game pace in Carolina but there are 11 players with at least 20 points here, indicative of the team-wide depth the Hurricanes enjoy. For comparison, the Hawks only have six players over 20 points. The top six also includes players like Andrei Svechnikov (42 points in 50 games), Nikolaj Ehlers (39 in 50) and Seth Jarvis (37 in 42). On the back end, Jaccob Slavin has played in five straight games, which is half of the 10 he’s been limited to this season because of injury, although his return coincided with the departure of Shayne Gostisbehere to the shelf, who’s the primary offensive threat on the blue line with 32 points (6 G, 26 A) in 35 games. Additional blue-liners like K’Andre Miller, Sean Walker and Jalen Chatfield have been steady enough to keep Carolina well ahead of the pack out East.

In net, Carolina may have found a diamond in the rough in Brandon Bussi, who was a free-agent signing by Florida last summer and then claimed off waivers by the Hurricanes in October. With Frederik Andersen struggling (7-10-3 record, .869 save percentage, 3.25 goals-against average) and Pyotr Kochetkov out for the year with an injury, Bussi has emerged as the team’s best goalie this season (18-3-1, .904, 2.20). Having an unproven goalie could create some nerves come the postseason but the quality team in front of Bussi, combined with his strong play, has been more than enough to make Carolina a top team this season.

No word on a starting goalie yet for the Canes but here was the practice lineup for them from Wednesday:

Canes practice lines (1/21):

Svechnikov-Aho-Jarvis
Hall-Stankoven-Blake
Ehlers-Staal-Martinook
Carrier-Jankowski-Kotkaniemi

Slavin-Chatfield
Miller-Walker
Nikishin-Nystrom
Reilly

Andersen
Bussi

*Gostisbehere, Robinson absent

— Ryan Henkel (@RyanHenkel_) January 21, 2026

As for the Hawks, they’re approaching full strength again with the news that Frank Nazar is expected back from injury for this game. An official activation of Nazar from IR is anticipated ahead of this game, providing another offensive boost to a team that needs all the scoring help it can get. It’s worth tempering expectations for Nazar in the short-term as he attempts to shake off some rust but he’ll eventually need to produce at a rate better than the one goal with no assists in eight games he’d had prior to injury.

Spencer Knight is the expected netminder after being in the starter’s crease for the morning skate. Here’s what to expect from the rest of Chicago’s lineup based on Wednesday’s practice:

Blackhawks lines and pairs at practice today Greene-Bedard-Burakovsky Donato-Nazar-Bertuzzi Slaggert-Moore-Lardis Foligno-Dickinson-Mikheyev Lafferty-Dach Vlasic-Crevier Kaiser-Levshunov Grzelcyk-Murphy PP1 Bertuzzi Burakovsky-Greene-Bedard Levshunov PP2 Foligno Moore-Nazar-Lardis Grzelcyk

— CHGO Blackhawks (@chgo-blackhawks.bsky.social) January 21, 2026 at 11:37 AM

Let’s go Hawks.

Tale of the Tape

Blackhawks — Statistic — Hurricanes
47.34% (27th) — 5-on-5 Corsi For — 60.07% (1st)
44.89% (30th) — 5-on-5 Expected goals for — 56.80% (1st)
2.71 (26th) — Goals per game — 3.38 (4th)
3.08 (t-17th) — Goals against per game — 2.86 (8th)
47.4% (26th) — Faceoffs — 50.5 (t-13th)
21.6% (13th) — Power play — 21.9% (12th)
84.6% (2nd) — Penalty kill — 79.6% (t-15th)
(All stats from this season)