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Trapped Under Ice: Blackhawks at Lightning Preview

The Blackhawks kick off a trio of road games on Tuesday night.

Posted on by Eric Gegenheimer
Credit: Daniel Bartel-Imagn Images

The Blackhawks play their first road game in 12 days as they head down to Tampa Bay to take on the Lightning on Tuesday night.

The Hawks and the Lightning just saw each other last Friday and gave us a pretty entertaining game while the rest of the league was dealing with the aftershocks of the Mikko Rantanen trade (which also included Taylor Hall). The Blackhawks jumped out to an early lead, based primarily off contributions from the yutes, before Tampa scored late in regulation to tie it, and early in overtime to win it.

The Lightning haven’t played since Saturday night, when they were shutout 2-0 by the Red Wings in Detroit. Despite a minor Nikita Kucherov injury scare during said Red Wings game, the Tampa Bay lineup should be pretty similar to what the Blackhawks had to deal with on Friday:

A noticeable change is the return of Bolts defenseman Erik Cernak, who missed last Friday’s game (as well as the three prior) with an undisclosed mystery ailment, but drew back in against Detroit. Cernak is (another) big body d-man who’s primarily tasked with taking the dungeon shifts (his defensive zone start percentage is over 70) for Jon Cooper.

Another possible change could be in net, where the Hawks might catch Andrei Vasilevskiy this time around. While Vasilevskiy has continued to stifle the rest of the league as per usual (his 8.5 goals saved above expected ranks 20th), he’s been especially lethal against the Blackhawks in his career with a sparkling 13-0 regular season record, and the shiny peripherals (2.14 goals-against average, .930 save percentage) to match.

The Hawks were able to put up three goals against the Lightning and Jonas Johansson on Friday by driving the slot, but those same types of opportunities won’t necessarily be there with Cernak firmly planted in their way and Vasilevskiy in net. Not to mention Cooper’s ability to dictate matchups since the Bolts are at home.

Which brings us to two of the most glaring issues for the Blackhawks this season …

The Hawks have just one win in their last 14 away games, and that was all the way back on Dec. 9 in New York. In 23 road games so far this season, they’re 5-15-3, which amounts to a dismal .283 winning percentage.

And even though they’re playing a lot more … let’s generously say “looser” … under Anders Sorensen, they certainly aren’t generating more chances, as they’ve been held under 30 shots (including just 14 against Tampa on Friday) in their last 11 games. The last time they accumulated 30 shots was all the way back in The Winter Classic (barf), which totally didn’t devolve into 50 minutes of garbage time hockey or anything. While there could be some reinforcements inserted into the lineup, none of them would do all that much in the old goal scoring department.

Some of those reinforcements were on the ice Monday, with both Connor Murphy and Craig Smith skating again, a possible sign that their respective returns are approaching:

Murphy won’t play in this game, and his absence has helped make space for Ethan Del Mastro to skate and he’s been really active (especially offensively) in his last two games with the big club.

One thing we could all agree on, though, is exactly which one of the Blackhawks’ elder defensemen who shouldn’t be back on the ice anytime soon:

https://twitter.com/BenPopeCST/status/1883248893611454668

Know who disagrees with that, though? Anders Sorensen, apparently:

Landon Slaggert was recalled over the weekend and didn’t skate against the Wild on Sunday night but his return comes at the expense of Colton Dach, while the aforementioned Brodie appears in over Nolan Allan. Here was Sorensen’s reasoning:

[Editor’s note: Eric wrote 95 percent of this recap last night. And then I (Dave) hopped in this morning to add in the lines from the morning skate working off the assumption that it wouldn’t be anything too noteworthy. Yet, here we fucking are, watching the Blackhawks navigate a rebuild by consistently removing potential future pieces from the lineup who should given all of the space they need to figure things out at the NHL level in favor of veterans who aren’t going to be around for the long haul. Make it make sense, please. Someone. Anyone. I beg of you. Anyway, back to Eric to bring us home, with a paragraph that somewhat still applies, even with the baffling lineup decisions detailed above]

If you’re looking for some optimism, I can give you this: the roster is filling up with kids, Frank Nazar has five points in his last four games, and the last time the Blackhawks were in Tampa, Connor Bedard had a four-point night to fuel a 5-3 win. They’re all going to be difficult from here on out, but a little youthful energy can go a long way sometimes, especially smack-dab in the middle of a grinding NHL season.

Let’s go Hawks.

Blackhawks — Statistic — Lightning
44.63% (32nd) — 5-on-5 Corsi For — 50.23% (14th)
44.19% (30th) — 5-on-5 Expected goals for — 55.92% (1st)
2.60 (31st) — Goals per game — 3.61 (1st)
3.43 (30th) — Goals against per game — 2.83 (11th)
44.8% (30th) — Faceoffs — 52.6% (4th)
23.9% (9th) — Power play — 26.7% (6th)
83% (11th) — Penalty kill — 81.1% (5th)
(All stats from this season)

How to watch

When: 6 p.m. CT
Where: Amalie Arena, Tampa Bay, FL
TV: CHSN
Webstream: ESPN+
Radio: WGN 720

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