The Chicago Blackhawks are going to face the Anaheim Ducks on Tuesday night. Anaheim comes in following a big win over the Dallas Stars.
The Chicago Blackhawks are set to host the Anaheim Ducks on Tuesday night at United Center. After a couple of games in the Pacific Northwest not going the way of the road team, the Hawks are looking to bounce back against a team more on their level.
The vibes have been down in Anaheim for a few years now. Despite not being a great team, they haven’t had any lottery luck and some of their best prospects are taking some time to develop. Every year, they come in wondering if this is when they take a big step but it hasn’t happened yet.
Anaheim is 7-8-2 for 16 standings points which is tied for the third-fewest in the NHL. Meanwhile, Chicago is 6-11-1 for 13 standings points which is dead last in the league. Both of these teams would love to come out and make a statement about their efforts going forward.
The Ducks come in feeling great about themselves. On Monday night, they earned a tremendous victory over the Dallas Stars who are considered by many to be a legit threat to win the Stanley Cup.
If the Blackhawks aren’t ready to play at their best, they are going to struggle against the Ducks too. What either team has done to this point means nothing knowing what the Ducks are capable of following a win like that.
There are a ton of young players on the Ducks that can change a game. Leo Carlsson, Trevor Zegras, and Cutter Gauthier are a few names to keep an eye on as they were all high draft picks and are loaded with talent.
There is going to be a shakeup for the Chicago Blackhawks in this game. Connor Bedard is going to be shifted to the wing instead of his natural center to get him going. Their lines and defense pairs will look like this:
Bedard-Dickinson-Anderson
Hall-Donato-Mikheyev
Kurashev-Foligno-Teravainen
Bertuzzi-Reichel-Smith
Vlasic-Murphy
Allan-Martinez
Kaiser-Brodie
Taylor Hall is drawing back in but Ilya Mikheyev is not coming out. Instead, it appears that Patrick Maroon won’t play against Anaheim based on these line projections.
The strange shakeup in these lines is due to the Hawks' failure to score more than one goal in regulation in five straight games. They are desperate for offense.
Arvid Soderblom is going to start for the Hawks. Petr Mrazek has stepped away from the team for personal reasons so they called up Drew Commesso to back him up.
Soderblom has been impressive so far this year and deserves to be starting more often. This is a great chance for him to make some big saves against good shooters in Anaheim.
This game is big for the Blackhawks. This bad streak is starting to linger and have some folks wondering about what is going on. This is a chance to get going in the right direction and feel good again.
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