The Season’s Upon Us: Blackhawks on the Wild Preview

The Blackhawks are back on the road Friday afternoon with the Minnesota Wild as their opponent.

We’ll do it quickly since puck drop is only about four hours away and most of us are still working through various food and/or drink related hangovers.

These two teams met about three weeks ago in the same venue, with Petr Mrazek making 32 saves on 33 shots in a 2-1 overtime win for Chicago. Minnesota has been largely OK since then, posting a 4-2-1 record in the seven outings since, including a 1-0 shutout of the Sabers on Wednesday. Injuries have been a bit of an issue lately, with Jonas Brodin missing that Sabers game and Mats Zuccarello out a few more weeks after undergoing surgery earlier this month. However, the Wild remain very active atop the Central Division with a 14-4-4 record (32 points), just four behind a Winnipeg Jets team that still leads the league despite coming back to Earth during November after its absurd 15. -1 start.

There was no update available on Brodin and no Minnesota morning skate before the afternoon start, so the best guess for line combinations comes from the aforementioned Wednesday game in Buffalo:

The Wild lines tonight via Sabers game staff: Kaprizov-Eriksson Ek-Boldy Johansson-Rossi-Hartman Foligno-Gaudreau-Trenin Shore-Jones-Boyd Middleton-Faber Chisholm-Spurgeon Merrill-Bogosian Gustavsson Fleury

—Joe Yerdon (@joeyerdon.bsky.social) 27 November 2024 at 17.50

The Blackhawks are probably still riding high after scoring six – yes, SIX – goals in a blowout of the Dallas Stars on Thanksgiving Eve. A Taylor Hall hat-trick was the highlight, with a goal for Connor Bedard perhaps the most pleasing sight to see to help him snap out of a prolonged scoring funk.

It would be a surprise if Chicago went too far from that lineup for this game:

Blackhawks lines in warm-up vs. Stars: Hall-Bedard-Kurashev Bertuzzi-Donato-Teravainen Mikheyev-Dickinson-Foligno Maroon-Reichel-Smith Vlasic-Murphy Kaiser-Martinez Brodie-Crevier Mrazek

— Ben Pope (@benpopecst.bsky.social) 27 November 2024 at 19:06

Grab your leftovers and meet us in the game thread.

Let’s go Hawks.

Story of the tape

Blackhawks — Statistics — Wild
44.12% (32nd) — 5-on-5 Corsi For — 48.49% (23rd)
44.74% (30th) — 5-on-5 Expected Goals for — 50.99% (16th)
2.5 (t-27.) — Measure per match — 3.23 (12.)
2.95 (t-12.) — Goal against per match — 2.36 (1st)
44.8% (29th) — Faceoffs — 48.7% (24th)
21.8% (11th) — Power play — 19.7% (t-17th)
78.5% (16th) — Penalty Kills — 74.5% (26th)

That’s how you see

When: 1 p.m. CT
Where: Xcel Energy Center, St. Paul
TV: CHSN (That’s how you see) Good luck finding it!
Webstream: ESPN+
Radio: WGN 720