Not much from morning skate today, other than the lineup and an update on the flu that hit the locker room. The Blackhawks host the Oilers tonight at 7:30 pm CT, and I share some thoughts at the bottom of this thing.
Oh, and if you noticed, on the home page, I added a sidebar with links to some Hawks-related sites. I’m not a fan of the customization here at micro.blog, which is making a migration over to Ghost a possibility sooner rather than later. So, bear with the old school look of this place for now (I personally kinda dig it).
Morning Skate Updates
Blackhawks lines via Ben Pope.
Greene-Bedard-Burakovsky
Bertuzzi-Dickinson-Mikheyev
Teravainen-Moore-Lardis
Donato-Foligno-Slaggert
Vlasic-Crevier
Kaiser-Levshunov
Grzelcyk-Murphy
Knight
Soderblom
Spencer Knight was in the starter’s crease, according to Mark Lazerus of The Athletic. I share some thoughts on Bedard’s line below. Depending on how Bedard and Greene looks I’d like to see Bedard with Lardis a little more. Me whining about Levshunov not playing with Vlasic is my new Teuvo not playing with Bedard.
Blackhawks vs. Oilers - 7:30 pm CT
I thought about doing full-blown previews like I’ve done at other places… but sometimes, I don’t want to preview every single game in depth. Once I start that precedence, it’s hard to take it back. So, you’ll get them here for now, stapled to the bottom of our daily updates. Some of these might go long, others may go short. Who knows!
The Edmonton Oilers are 5-4-1 in their last 10 games, with their last game being a 4-3 shootout loss against their rival, the Los Angeles Kings. Connor McDavid has an incredible 78 points in 45 games. He’s on pace for 142 points. Insanity. Leon Draisaitl has 63 points in 45, and defenseman Evan Bouchard has 43 points in 45.
Goaltender Tristan Jarry is now day-to-day, having been on injured reserve since Jan. 6. Defenseman Jake Walman is day-to-day and has been on long-term injured reserve since Dec. 11. Forward Adam Henrique is listed month-to-month since his injury on Jan. 7.
The last time these two played each other was on Nov. 1, a 3-2 overtime loss for the visiting Hawks, who are now 6-3-1 in their last 10 games. The Hawks could take advantage of the Oilers' atrocious team save percentage, which sits at 30th in the league at .887 at 5v5. It just depends on who’s in net. Edmonton’s expected goals against rate is the 13th best in the league, which tells me that their defense isn’t horrible. But it isn’t great either.
Bedard centering Ryan Greene and Andre Burakovsky will be interesting. Without Bedard, the Blackhawks' offense was pretty grim. So this is the line that’s going to have to get it done. Does Dickinson’s line take on McDavid and allow Bedard to run rampant? Blashill has last change tonight, since the Hawks are home, something to keep an eye on. In the span without Bedard, the Hawks ranked 27th in expected goals for per 60 and 17th in Corsi.
With Ryan Greene displaying impressive hockey IQ and finding scoring areas, it will be interesting to see how Bedard and Greene play together. With Bedard not taking face-offs for the foreseeable future (according to Jeff Blashill), we can expect Greene to take the dot.