The Chicago Blackhawks held practice on Monday ahead of Tuesday night's game vs the Minnesota Wild.
Shortly after Sacha Boisvert made his signing with the Chicago Blackhawks official, the team took the ice for practice.
Boisvert was not in attendance due to issues with his work visa, which must be resolved before he can practice and play. Once he gets a practice in with the big club, you can be sure that he will dress for the next game.
Where Boisvert fits in with the lineup of forwards remains to be seen, but you can assume that it will be in the bottom six.
For now, the forwards lined up as expected during their practice on Monday. To make room for Boisvert, with Moore already out due to injury, one of Landon Slaggert or Sam Lafferty is expected to sit in favor of Boisvert.
Greene-Bedard-Burakovsky
Bertuzzi-Nazar-Teravainen
Mangiapane-Donato-Mikheyev
Lardis-Lafferty-Slaggert
Vlasic-Levshunov
Kaiser-Rinzel
Del Mastro-Crevier
Grzelcyk
On defense, there are a couple of changes. For one, Wyatt Kaiser appears good to go after missing Saturday's game against the Vegas Golden Knights. Expect him to play on Tuesday. He was paired with Sam Rinzel in practice.
Instead of Ethan Del Mastro coming out of the top three pairs, however, Matt Grzelcyk did. Grzelcyk has played in all 66 games for Chicago so far this year, but his first healthy scratch may be coming based on these practice pairs.
There is also a chance they run with 11 forwards and 7 defensemen if Boisvert can't play on Tuesday, which will be confirmed or denied later.
Louis Crevier came down to play with Del Mastro, while Artyom Levshunov jumped up to the top pair with Alex Vlasic. For now, this appears to be Jeff Blashill's way of spreading the wealth on defense.
Tuesday's matchup will be against the Minnesota Wild, who are angry because they are going through a slump. If the Hawks want to avoid being the team that gets the Wild back on track, they will need two extraordinary efforts because they will play them again on Thursday in St. Paul.
