NEWSLETTER
Hey, there’s an actual Blackhawks game tonight! And… yes, there was a new look at the Blackhawks’ skate in Chicago on Wednesday before they boarded the plane for Seattle. When I wrote about helping Connor Bedard earlier this week, I was close to picking the lines they’re going to at least start with tonight against the Kraken. Here’s what we saw for the forwards at practice on Wednesday:
Connor Bedard — Philipp Kurashev — Teuvo Teräväinen
Taylor Hall — Nick Foligno — Tyler Bertuzzi
Ryan Donato — Jason Dickinson — Joey Anderson
Pat Maroon — Lukas Reichel — Craig Smith
Yeah, that’s Bedard on the wing. Richardson told us before heading to the airport that they’re not only looking for lines that click, but the opponent has some impact on how they line things up. He noted that teams like Dallas, LA and Vancouver are a bit bigger while a team like Detroit or Seattle (tonight) might be more up-and-down.
- With the new-look lines in place, one of the areas of ongoing focus is the Blackhawks still trying to figure out their second line. Taylor Hall is healthy and he’s been on that line most of the season to date, but the goal scoring hasn’t been there like anyone would like. But there’s a lot more to the game than the box score (I know, that’s shocking). And Ben Pope did a nice job of looking at the underlying metrics that tell us Hall is doing a lot of things well — now he just needs to translate that into finding the back of the net. This is a great nugget from the piece:
Hall leads the Hawks with 28.8 offensive-zone entries per 60 minutes, exceeding second-place Ryan Donato (24.0) and third-place Lukas Reichel (23.1), per All Three Zones. And 54.0% of Hall’s entries have been carry-ins rather than dump-ins, a percentage nowhere close to Connor Bedard’s (81.3%) but still above the league average (50.5%).
- One more update from practice on Wednesday: Alec Martinez is traveling with the team for the two-game trip but wouldn’t commit to returning quite yet. He was a full practice participant on Wednesday and, with two players recently sent to Rockford, the Blackhawks don’t have to make a roster move to activate Martinez while they’re on the road. Richardson said they’ll see how he feels after the full practice yesterday and go from there.
- For what it’s worth, Martinez took rushes with Seth Jones during practice. Alex Vlasic was back with Connor Murphy and TJ Brodie, Wyatt Kaiser and Nolan Allan were rotating on the third pair.
- Andreas Athanasiou, one of the two players sent to Rockford I just mentioned (with Isaak Phillips), wasted little time showing his skill against AHL competition. The IceHogs had a late-morning start in Grand Rapids on Wednesday and he scored 28 seconds into the game. He scored again in the second period. Unfortunately, those were Rockford’s only two goals and they lost 5-2.
Well that didn’t take long 😏
— Rockford IceHogs (@goicehogs) November 13, 2024
Athanasiou from Savoie & Korchinski #GoHogs pic.twitter.com/uDccXsvucG
- Elliotte Friedman published a written version of his “32 Thoughts” last night and included this nugget on Athanasiou:
Didn’t realize Andres Athanasiou was paid a $2M bonus earlier this season, so he’s cash-under-cap ($4.25M hit). Interested parties always love that, although the overall number is still pretty big this early. Chicago’s used one of its three retained-salary slots (Jake McCabe) and teams are always careful about maintaining that flexibility.
- Nice story here on Blackhawks’ 2024 first-round pick Marek Vanacker, who hasn’t played since having offseason shoulder surgery. He’s on track to return to game action in early December and has joined the Brantford Bulldogs — and fellow Blackhawks prospect Nick Lardis — for some skating. I’m excited to see him back on the ice because he’s a beast. (Lardis had an assist last night in the Bulldogs’ 3-2 loss to Barrie.)
- Patrick Kane made a little history last night at the expense of the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Patrick Kane put the visitors up 2-0 and factored on the overtime winner by Simon Edvinsson as the @DetroitRedWings prevailed in Pittsburgh. #NHLStats: https://media.nhl.com/public/live-updates?date=2024-11-13
[image or embed]— NHL Public Relations (Bot) (@notprnhl.bsky.social) November 13, 2024 at 10:28 PM
- Interesting notes here from Frank Seravalli about NHL players wearing neck guards. By my count, three current Blackhawks — Kaiser, Tyler Bertuzzi and Joey Anderson — are wearing them for everything. I know the union doesn’t like the idea of setting the precedent that the league can dictate things like this, and — like buckets and then visors — there will be players who simply don’t want to change the way they’ve played the game their entire lives. But I would also think both the players and the league can find somewhere to meet on this because it just makes too much sense.
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- ICYMI, the end of last night’s Bulls-Knicks game was absolute madness.
- Yesterday we got the first awkward “Hey, rookie quarterback, how do you feel about your coach getting fired?” moment from Bears top pick Caleb Williams.
- Brett had some thoughts on another veteran catcher who might pop up on the Cubs’ radar this winter.
