Snap Yo Fingers: Blackhawks at Avalanche Preview

The Blackhawks kick off a weekend back-to-back in Denver on Saturday evening against the league-leading Colorado Avalanche.

Colorado has basically spent this season doing laps around the rest of the league. At 38-10-9 (.746 points percentage), they’re five points clear of the next closest team in the standings and looking every bit like a group that knows exactly how good it is. The underlying numbers are just as suffocating: Colorado owns 56.14 percent of shot attempts (second in the league) and a league-best 56.05 percent of expected goals, meaning this isn’t smoke and mirrors — it’s territorial dominance on a nightly basis. That process has translated cleanly to results, with the Avalanche having the top goals-for rate (3.81 per game) and stingiest goals-against marks (2.46) in the league. When a team is driving play, generating quality, and limiting damage all at once, you’re not just looking at a contender — you’re looking at the standard everyone else is chasing.

The only mildly iffy part of the Avalanche game is their power play, which sits last in the league (15.1 percent). They make up for it by scoring a ton at 5-on-5 and with an incredible penalty kill (third, 83.9 percent). It’s not a perfect mirror, but this Avalanche team kind of reminds me of how the Blackhawks’ Golden Years Cup teams were 5-on-5 dominant with mixed special teams.

Up front, the Avalanche are, unsurprisingly, driven by Nathan MacKinnon. He not only leads the team with a 1.70 points-per-game rate, he’s tied for second in the league with 95 points. There’s a roughly 30-point drop after him, but Martin Necas is still comfortably over a point per game (1.22), giving Colorado a legitimate second offensive driver. Gabriel Landeskog has missed time due to injury and his production (0.56) is below his usual standard, yet he remains one of their most reliable two-way top-six forwards. Brock Nelson (0.88), Artturi Lehkonen (0.74), and Valeri Nichushkin (0.73) round out a well-defined top six, while the bottom six blends secondary scoring with defense-first reliability. It’s a forward group that’s deep not just in talent, but in clearly defined roles from top to bottom.

On defense, the Avalanche are similarly well balanced. Cale Makar (1.02) is one of — if not the — best defenders in the league, driving play and production from the back end. Devon Toews (0.30) provides the ideal defensive counterweight on the top pair, allowing Makar to press without the whole structure unraveling. Brent Burns (0.47) and Josh Manson (0.46) form a steady second pair that can handle tough minutes while still chipping in offensively. The Avalanche also recently acquired Brett Kulak from the Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for Samuel Girard. While not necessarily a standout, Kulak is a stable veteran presence and has participated in the Stanley Cup Final in each of the last two seasons, even if his teams ultimately fell short.

The rich get richer in net, as Avalanche goaltenders have been performing decently above average too. Starter Scott Wedgewood owns a .913 save percentage with 7.8 goals saved above average in 31 games, while Mackenzie Blackwood has posted a .916 and 11.6 in those same respective stats in 24 games. It’s not a single Vezina-level carry job, but instead a sturdy, above-average tandem that gives them a chance every night and steals a game on occasion too. Very 2013 Blackhawks-like in net, no?

The Avalanche did not have a morning skate, so their lines from their last game are below:

Avs lines for this evening:

Landeskog – Nelson – Necas
Lehkonen – Drury – Nichushkin
Colton – Kelly – Olofsson
Kiviranta – Bardakov – Brindley

Toews – Makar
Manson – Burns
Kulak – Malinski

Wedgewood

— Evan Rawal (@evanrawal) February 26, 2026

As for the Hawks, we know how their season is going: not great. Before the Olympic break, they’d won only three of their last 10 games and then dropped their first game back, a 4-2 loss to the Nashville Predators on Thursday. Connor Bedard and Spencer Knight looked like their usual top-shelf selves against the Predators, but the rest of the roster left something to be desired. They currently sit 29th in the standings, with only a few points separating them from second worst (no one is catching the basement-dwelling Vancouver Canucks). Still, as noted in the last preview, there’s plenty to watch for in the final stretch — though much of that intrigue will likely come post-trade deadline, when the youth movement hopefully takes over in full.

The Blackhawks similarly did not have a morning skate, but they did practice at Denver University yesterday.

Blackhawks lines in practice in Denver today:

Greene-Bedard-Burakovsky
Moore-Nazar-Teravainen
Bertuzzi-Dickinson-Mikheyev
Donato-Foligno-Slaggert

Vlasic-Crevier
Grzelcyk-Levshunov
Murphy-Rinzel

— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) February 27, 2026

The most notable changes saw Teuvo Teravainen moved to the second line with Oliver Moore and Frank Nazar, which pushes Tyler Bertuzzi and Ryan Donato down to the third and fourth lines, respectively. Nazar and Teravainen had some chemistry earlier in the season, so it’ll be interesting to see if they can spark again. Bertuzzi on the checking line is less exciting, as it has neutered him offensively in the past, even if the line remains fine defensively.

The other note worth mentioning: if the pairs hold true in the game, it means Kevin Korchinski will sit out his second game in a row. It seems pretty silly to promote him only to park him in the press box when he could be playing actual minutes in Rockford –especially when they could have recalled another defender from the IceHogs to serve as the extra body in case of injury on the current road trip.

Lastly, the Colorado Avalanche have already played two games since returning from the break and split them: a 4-2 win over the Utah Mammoth on Wednesday and a 5-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild on Thursday. They are obviously the better team in this scenario, but the Blackhawks will be more rested and, hopefully, playing with something to prove.