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This Song is a Poem to Myself: Blackhawks at Red Wings Preview

Posted on by Dave Melton
Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

A busy stretch of the schedule continues on Friday night, as the Blackhawks kick off a pair of weekend games with a visit to Detroit on Friday night to face the Red Wings.

Detroit is currently riding the wave of a midseason coaching change, a move that often puts some springs into some steps for a few weeks, resulting in victories piling up in a hurry (gestures towards the Blackhawks games from mid-December). Todd McLellan is 5-1 behind the bench after relieving Derek Lalonde in late December and, after initially losing to Toronto, his side has ripped off five straight victories, including a 3-2 overtime win over the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday night. Despite that surge, though, the Red Wings are seventh in the eight-team Atlantic Division, 12th in the Eastern Conference and 23rd in the league standings. There is potential for a postseason chase here, with Detroit only four points back on Columbus for the second wild card spot with a pair of games in hand but there are four teams for the Red Wings to leap over the back half of the season to get there. Not impossible, but still a steep mountain to summit.

About the only saving grace for Detroit this season has been its power play, ranked third in the league with a 27.4 percent conversion rate, and its top scorers have all been fattening up their stat lines with the mad advantage. Young Lucas Raymond has 42 points (16 G, 26 A) in 40 games and almost half of them (3 G, 17 A) are on the power play. Similar stories follow for Dylan Larkin (35 points in 40 games, 9 G, 7 A on the power play) and our old friends Alex DeBrincat (33 points in 40 games, 7 G, 8 A on the power play) and Patrick Kane (22 points in 35 games, 5 G, 5 A on the power play). Simply staying out of the box is the easiest way to keep this game within reach.

At 5-on-5, though, this team just isn’t all that intimidating from an offensive standpoint. Larkin and Raymond will be on the top line and can certainly fly but haven’t proven to be even-strength monsters by any means. Kane and DeBrincat are opposite wings with Andrew Copp in the middle on the second line but that former Blackhawks duo has always been so rush-reliant that preventing bad turnovers can silence their production rates in a hurry. The bottom six isn’t worth spending much time while the defense has Moritz Seider and not much else to write about, including old friend Erik Gustafsson and former Blackhawks draft pick Justin Holl. The best Detroit has managed in net is a roughly average season from Cam Talbot (8-9-2 record, .903 save percentage, 3.03 goals-against average) or Alex Lyon (8-5-0, .902, 2.71). Lyon is banged up, so Ville Husso is around and he’s been bad (1-4-2, .877, 3.47).

As for the Blackhawks, small lineup changes occurred at Thursday’s practice that are expected to persist into Friday’s game. Philipp Kurashev returns from the press box to slot in on the fourth line at the expense of Lukas Reichel, who appears to be a healthy scratch once again:

Chicago has won two of three after losing five straight to close out 2024. Perhaps better performances can be more frequent in the new year? Only one way to find out.

Let’s go Hawks.

Blackhawks — Statistic — Red Wings
45.21% (31st) — 5-on-5 Corsi For — 46.38% (29th)
45.20% (30th) — 5-on-5 Expected goals for — 45.65% (28th)
2.54 (30th) — Goals per game — 2.73 (25th)
3.37 (27th) — Goals against per game — 3.2 (25th)
44.2% (31st) — Faceoffs — 51.0% (13th)
23.1% (12th) — Power play — 27.4% (3rd)
83.9% (4th) — Penalty kill — 69.4% (31st)
(All stats from this season)

How to watch

When: 6 p.m. CT
Where: Little Caesars Arena, Detroit
TV: CHSN, NHL Network
Webstream: ESPN+
Radio: WGN 720

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