Chicago’s two-game trip to the Pacific Northwest wraps up on Saturday night against the Vancouver Canucks.
Vancouver was one of the biggest surprises from the 2023-24 season, as the team snapped a three-season playoff drought with a 109-point regular season under coach Rick Tocchet, who took over the team in the middle of the 2022-23 season and ignited a second-half spark that carried into the prior season. The Canucks are lagging a bit behind last season’s pace so far with an 8-4-3 record and 19 points, a pace of roughly 104 points over an 82-game season that would certainly be enough for another postseason appearance. Most of the players doing the primary damage for Vancouver are returners, with Quinn Hughes continuing to be one of the league’s most entertaining blue-liners while producing a team-high 16 points (3 G, 13 A) in 15 games. Behind him are forwards JT Miller (5 G, 9 A) and Brock Boeser (6 G, 5 A), although the latter is currently sidelined after being on the wrong end of a dirty hit from Los Angeles Kings forward Tanner Jeannot. The Canucks have still scored 12 goals in the last four games, though, so Boeser’s absence hasn’t been too big of a hindrance yet. Offseason addition Jake DeBrusk has been another key producer for Vancouver with with 9 points (3 G, 6 A) in 15 games, and there’s also Elias Petterson, who’s produced 191 points in the last two seasons. There’s plenty of offense here, helping Vancouver rally from its 0-1-2 start, although the last game for the Canucks was a 5-2 loss to the New York Islanders on Thursday night.
Defense has been the larger issue for Vancouver, especially in net, where Arturs Silovs has come back down to Earth a bit after he became a playoff folk hero with a pair of wins, .938 save percentage during the Canucks’ win over the Predators in the first round of the 2024 postseason. He also had a trio of wins against Edmonton in the following round before McDavid and Co. went and Thanos’d Silovs and the Canucks out of the playoffs. But Silovs hasn’t won a game in three starts this season with a goals-against average of 4.77 and a save percentage at .808 — yikes! Old friend Kevin Lankinen has been better with an 8-2-2 record, .907 save percentage and 2.60 goals-against average, helping man the net while Thatcher Demko is still sidelined by the knee injury that ended his 2024 postseason prematurely.
This was the Canucks’ lineup in their most recent game, so expect something similar on Saturday night, although Silovs will be the one in net instead of Lankinen:
Warmup #Canucks lines vs. NYI DeBrusk. Pettersson. Garland. Suter. Miller. Lekkerimäki. Heinen. Blueger. Sherwood. Joshua. Räty. Höglander. Hughes. Hronek. Soucy. Myers. Brännström. Desharnais. 🥅Lankinen🥅 7pm on @sportsnet650.bsky.social player.sportsnet650.ca
— Brendan Batchelor (@batchhockey.bsky.social) November 14, 2024 at 8:37 PM
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As for the Blackhawks, all eyes will be on Connor Bedard this evening — even more than usual, as he returns to play an NHL game for the first time in his native Vancouver. This game is the late-night national broadcast for Hockey Night in Canada, which focuses a brighter spotlight on this game for those north of the border. And Bedard enters this game during what’s probably the biggest slump of his young career. He hasn’t scored a goal in his last eight games and had just four total shots on goal in the last three games. That’s the worst stretch for Bedard since two stretches of three games that saw the Chicago wunderkind register just two shots on goal combined. The lack of opportunities is perhaps more worrisome than the lack of production, because curing the latter comes as a result of the former. But generating offense has been a team-wide struggle lately, so perhaps Bedard’s drought is a symptom of the overall ailments affecting this offensively inept Blackhawks side.
Need a dose of optimism? When Bedard went eight straight games without a goal last season, he erupted for eight points in the next two games: three (2 G, 1 A) against Arizona and five (1 G, 4 A) against Anaheim. Vancouver is certainly a higher quality opponent than those two teams, but a national spotlight for a homecoming game would be a delightful time for Bedard to remind everyone why he’s been viewed as a prodigy for years before the NHL came calling.
As for the rest of the Chicago lineup, it’s going to look noticeably different than the one that skated against Seattle on Thursday. News from the morning skate is that Seth Jones is heading to IR due to an injury suffered while blocking a shot against the Kraken and … sigh … Taylor Hall will be a healthy scratch.
Luke Richardson confirms some major Blackhawks lineup updates tonight against the Canucks: Soderblom starts in goal. Seth Jones is going on IR with a right foot injury. And Taylor Hall is a healthy scratch in favor of Ilya Mikheyev.
— Ben Pope (@benpopecst.bsky.social) November 16, 2024 at 2:09 PM
So take those updates and see how they mesh with the lineup below from the pregame skate against the Kraken on Thursday. Any guess is a good one!
Blackhawks lines in warmups in Seattle are as expected, with Martinez (GTD) in: Kurashev-Bedard-Teravainen Hall-Foligno-Bertuzzi Donato-Dickinson-Anderson Maroon-Reichel-Smith Martinez-Jones Vlasic-Murphy Kaiser-Brodie Mrazek
— Ben Pope (@benpopecst.bsky.social) November 14, 2024 at 8:36 PM
There will also be a change in the Blackhawks net after Mrazek played on Thursday:
Looks like Arvid Söderblom gets the start tonight.
— Mark Lazerus (@marklazerus.bsky.social) November 16, 2024 at 1:57 PM
A game against a goalie with a save percentage just over .800 and a goals-against average just shy of 5.00 would seem like the perfect time for a get-right game for Bedard and the Blackhawks offense. But the Canucks are probably thinking the same thing for their goalie. Guess we’ll see which of those things comes to fruition.
Let’s go Hawks.
Tale of the Tape
Blackhawks — Statistic — Canucks
43.71% (32nd) — 5-on-5 Corsi For — 51.45% (10th)
42.37% (31st) — 5-on-5 Expected goals for — 52.28% (8th)
2.17 (32nd) — Goals per game — 3.40 (6th)
3.52 (29th) — Goals against per game — 2.70 (6th)
46.3% (29th) — Faceoffs — 51.6% (9h)
16.60% (28th) — Power play — 22.6% (12th)
75.76% (27th) — Penalty kill — 79.1% (17th)
(All stats from last season)
How to Watch
When: 9 p.m. CT
Where: Rogers Arena, Vancouver
TV: CHSN (A new app launched Friday, if you want to pay $20/month to watch this team)
Webstream: ESPN+
Radio: WGN 720