A particularly bleak stretch of Blackhawks hockey continues on Saturday night at the United Center with the Vegas Golden Knights as the opponent.
Although the Blackhawks secured a pity point by making it to overtime in their last game, a loss to a Nashville Predators team down near it in the dungeon of the NHL standings has further cemented Chicago’s status as the worst team in the league with a measly 31 points in 45 games, a pace of about 56 points over an 82-game schedule that’s only mildly above last season’s 52-point result. The opponent this evening is very much on the other side of the coin, with Vegas entering this game tied with the Edmonton Oilers atop the Pacific Division at 61 points in 45 games, good for a second-place tie in the Western Conference and tied for third overall in the league standings. VGK is in a bit of a downward trend of late, though, losing four of their last five, most recently a 3-2 loss on the road against the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday night. So this will be a team in not-so-great form while also on tired legs. Perhaps the Blackhawks can take advantage of that?
This is the first of three meetings between these two teams this season, with Vegas looking more like the team that won the Cup in 2023 than the one that exited from the first round of the playoffs in 2024. Jack Eichel remains one of the top No. 1 centers in the game and has a team-high 44 assists and 55 points as further evidence of that. Shea Theodore continues to be a blue-line standout with 37 points (5 G, 32 A) in 44 games with an average ice time of 21:50 per game that’s second only to fellow blue-liner Alex Pietrangelo. Mark Stone has only skated 31 games this season, which has been a common theme for him lately, but he’s still producing over a point-per-game with 39 (12 G, 27 A), good for second on the team. Depth scoring seems to be one of VGK’s strongest suits, as nine players are over 20 points. Conversely, Chicago has only five such players over the 20-point plateau.
For Vegas’ brief existence it has given Chicago fits, largely because of this depth scoring approaching. Whereas teams with more top-heavy lineups can only boast an advantage or two over Chicago’s lines, Vegas typically runs out a deeper lineup that gives it the advantage across all four forward lines, meaning the Knights virtually always have a better group on the ice. In net, Adin Hill (18-8-2 record, .903 save percentage and 2.56 goals-against average) and Ilya Samsonov (11-5-1, .904, 2.70) have been equally fine, with Samsonov expected to be the man in net for this game after Hill faced Carolina on Friday. Everything above adds up to a team that’s fourth in the league at 3.38 goals scored per game and sixth in the league at 2.69 goals allowed per game, which gives it a sizeable advantage on paper over the home team.
Here’s what VGK looked like against Carolina:
Golden Knights lines in Carolina, with Schwindt slotting in and Alexander Holtz as a healthy scratch:
— Jesse Granger (@JesseGranger_) January 17, 2025
Barbashev—Eichel—Stone
Olofsson—Hertl—Dorofeyev
Howden—Karlsson—Schwindt
Pearson—Roy—Kolesar
Hanifin—Pietrangelo
McNabb—Theodore
Hague—Whitecloud
Hill
Samsonov
As for the Blackhawks, there hasn’t been much of anything pleasant to discuss about the team this season and the recent past hasn’t strayed from that narrative: they’ve lost four in a row and nine of their last 11. The new top line of Tyler Bertuzzi, Connor Bedard and Frank Nazar offered some level of entertainment on Thursday night, although that still wasn’t enough to pick up a victory over a Predators team much closer to its weight class than this Golden Knights one.
Here’s the practice lineup from Friday:
Blackhawks lines in practice, only change is Kurashev in for Maroon (maintenance):
— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) January 17, 2025
Bertuzzi-Bedard-Nazar
Teravainen-Dickinson-Mikheyev
Dach-Reichel-Foligno
Hall-Donato-Kurashev
Chicago has seemed to show up a little more when the high-quality opponents have come to town, so perhaps that’ll make the game this evening a little easier to watch?
Let’s go Hawks.
Blackhawks — Statistic — Golden Knights
44.81% (31st) — 5-on-5 Corsi For — 49.89% (15th)
44.15% (30th) — 5-on-5 Expected goals for — 50.95% (10th)
2.53 (30th) — Goals per game — 3.38 (t-4th)
3.42 (t-29th) — Goals against per game — 2.69 (6th)
44.6% (30th) — Faceoffs — 51.2% (12th)
23.1% (12th) — Power play — 26.4% (5th)
83.1% (t-4th) — Penalty kill — 78.9% (t-17th)
(All stats from this season)
How to watch
When: 7 p.m. CT
Where: United Center, Chicago
TV: CHSN
Webstream: ESPN+
Radio: WGN 720