The Blackhawks are back on the road on Friday afternoon with the Minnesota Wild as the opponent.
We’ll make this quick, since puck drop is only about four hours away and most of us are still working their way through various food and/or drink-related hangovers.
These two teams met about three weeks ago at the same place, with Petr Mrazek making 32 saves on 33 shots in a 2-1 overtime victory for Chicago. Minnesota’s been mostly OK since then, with a 4-2-1 record in the seven outings since, including a 1-0 shutout of the Sabres on Wednesday. Injuries have been a bit of an issue lately, with Jonas Brodin missing that Sabres game and Mats Zuccarello out for a few more weeks after undergoing surgery earlier this month. The Wild remain very active atop the Central Division standings, though, with a 14-4-4 record (32 points) that is just four behind a Winnipeg Jets team that still leads the league despite coming back to Earth during November following its absurd 15-1 start.
There was no update available on Brodin and no Minnesota morning skate before the afternoon start, so the best guess at line combos comes from that aforementioned Wednesday game in Buffalo:
The Wild lines tonight via Sabres game staff: Kaprizov-Eriksson Ek-Boldy Johansson-Rossi-Hartman Foligno-Gaudreau-Trenin Shore-Jones-Boyd Middleton-Faber Chisholm-Spurgeon Merrill-Bogosian Gustavsson Fleury
— Joe Yerdon (@joeyerdon.bsky.social) November 27, 2024 at 5:50 PM
The Blackhawks are probably still riding high after scoring six — yeah, SIX — goals in a blowout of the Dallas Stars on Thanksgiving Eve. A Taylor Hall hat trick was the highlight, with a goal for Connor Bedard perhaps the most pleasant sight to see to help him snap out of a lengthy scoring funk.
It’d be a surprise if Chicago strayed too far from that lineup for this game:
Blackhawks lines in warmups vs. Stars: Hall-Bedard-Kurashev Bertuzzi-Donato-Teravainen Mikheyev-Dickinson-Foligno Maroon-Reichel-Smith Vlasic-Murphy Kaiser-Martinez Brodie-Crevier Mrazek
— Ben Pope (@benpopecst.bsky.social) November 27, 2024 at 7:06 PM
Grab your leftovers and meet us in the game thread.
Let’s go Hawks.
Tale of the Tape
Blackhawks — Statistic — Wild
44.12% (32nd) — 5-on-5 Corsi For — 48.49% (23rd)
44.74% (30th) — 5-on-5 Expected goals for — 50.99% (16th)
2.5 (t-27th) — Goals per game — 3.23 (12th)
2.95 (t-12th) — Goals against per game — 2.36 (1st)
44.8% (29th) — Faceoffs — 48.7% (24th)
21.8% (11th) — Power play — 19.7% (t-17th)
78.5% (16th) — Penalty kill — 74.5% (26th)
How to Watch
When: 1 p.m. CT
Where: Xcel Energy Center, St. Paul
TV: CHSN (How to Watch) Good luck finding it!
Webstream: ESPN+
Radio: WGN 720