Blackhawks Practice: Kane & Byram Updates, Lines, & More

The Chicago Blackhawks took the ice at Blackhawks Ice Arena on Wednesday afternoon. They are preparing for Thursday night’s matchup with the Buffalo Sabres at the United Center. 

Patrick Kane and Bowen Byram, who have been out with injury, but they both resumed practicing with the team on Wednesday. Each of them has been skating before practice in non-contact sweaters, but this time they joined their teammates (while also wearing non-contact sweaters). 

After practice ended, Jeff Blashill said that they both remain day to day. Based on the way practice went along with Blashill’s tone on their return, it seems like Kane’s return is closer than Byram’s. 

When asked further about it, Blashill would not go past the fact that they are both just day-to-day. He wouldn’t rule out Kane for Thursday, but also just kept repeating the day-to-day term. 

Both of them mostly skated as extras, and the lines looked as follows:

Kantserov-Bedard-Bertuzzi

Mangiapane-Frondell-Teravainen

Moore-Nazar-Donato

Smith-Greene-Greenway

Boucher/Kane

Vlasic-Cole

Del Mastro-Levshunov

Kaiser-Rinzel

Korchinski/Byram

Knight

Commesso

These lines are more of the same with the injuries that they’ve had. Going into Thursday, assuming Kane and Byram are out, it appears that Dillon Boucher and Kevin Korchinski are the healthy scratches.  Spencer Knight is the expected starter for Thursday, but Drew Commesso is sure to make his season debut soon following his call-up. 

Things are not going well, but nobody has lost faith within the group. It shows in their practice, and the leaders all preach about the character within the group as they try to break out of this bad stretch. 

Kyle Davidson spoke to the media after practice. He laid out a lot of updates on the organization, which will be explained on The Hockey News Blackhawks page soon. 

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