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Sophomore Slump or Comeback of the Year: Blackhawks vs. Wild Preseason Preview

Same opponent, different venue.

Credit: David Banks-USA TODAY Sports

After bring on the road for the last three games, the Chicago Blackhawks host the Minnesota Wild at the United Center on Friday night still looking for their first win of the preseason in their penultimate game before the regular season.

This will be the second time this week that the Blackhawks will have faced the Wild, having been soundly defeated 7-2 by the mild team from Minnesota on Tuesday. Jason Dickinson opened the scoring early in first that game, but the Wild then scored six goals in a row — including five in the second period — to run away with the game. Connor Bedard also got on the board for the Blackhawks right before the second closed, but it was already too late to mount any type of comeback. Prospect goalie Drew Commesso was in net the entire game, and while seven goals against looks bad, he also faced 42 shots — a goals against volume that brought up too many comparisons to the dismal last season.

The Blackhawks lines at yesterday’s practice are expected to be what they roll for the Friday night game:

With the only players really showing any type of offensive chemistry this preseason, it’s not surprising Bedard and Teuvo Teräväinen will start out on a line together with Tyler Bertuzzi. Lukas Reichel and Andreas Athanasiou were skating on the de facto fifth line after a less-than-stellar showing in their one preseason game so far. On defense, neither Alec Martinez nor Wyatt Kaiser were skating on Thursday, so it’s unlikely they’ll play Friday. Nolan Allan and Isaak Phillips were acting as third pairing.

Interestingly, Alex Vlasic has taken over on the second power-play unit for Kevin Korchinski, who was sent to Rockford a few days ago. I say interesting because Vlasic is not an offensive defensemen, outside of having a more-than-solid stretch pass.

A few injury updates: Artyom Levshunov continued to skate and coach Luke Richardson gave an estimated return for goalie Laurent Brossoit.

Speaking of injuries, Taylor Hall spoke about how his knee has been feeling since his surgery and also how he and the team will manage so as to keep Hall as healthy as possible:

As for the Wild, they are 3-2 in the preseason so far, including two lopsided outings: the aforementioned Blackhawks rout on Tuesday and a 8-5 victory over the Winnipeg Jets (albeit mostly-prospect-filled roster) last Friday.

How to Watch

When: 7:30 p.m. CT
Where: United Center, Chicago
Webstream: N/A
Radio: WGN AM 720
TV (according to the Blackhawks official website): 

  • CHSN
  • DirecTV Channel 665
  • U-Verse Channel 741 or 1741
  • Astound (formerly RCN): Channels 685 and 576 (HD), Channels 370 and 371
  • By Antenna: WJYS Channel 62 (Chicago), 19 (Rockford), 16 (South Bend) — for Over-The-Air support, call (877) 828-8198 or visit CHSN.com.

Talking Points