The Need to Knows
- The Time: 5:30pm PT
- The Place: United Center, Chicago, Illinois
- Place to Watch: KHN, KONG, Amazon Prime
- Place to Listen: Kraken Audio Network, courtesy of KJR 93.3-FM
- An Opposing Viewpoint: Second City Hockey
Know Your Enemy
- The ‘Hawks are tied for bottom of the conference with the Preds; they have a 11-19-2 record and 24 points in the standings.
- Ryan Donato is the leading goalscorer for the Blackhawks, with 11 goals in 30 games.
- Connor Bedard is definitely going to be the class of the Conference…whenever the Blackhawks get him some help. He’s leading the ‘Hawks in points and assists with 26 points, and 19 assists.
- While most of the ‘Hawks play has been pretty butt, their Power Play is actually pretty decent; with it sitting at a 22.6% success rate, which is good for 12th in the league. Teuvo Teravainen is the player whose clicked the most with it; He’s got 5 power play goals in 32 games.
- Chicago had been putting Petr Mrazek out there for the majority of starts…but now? He’s on IR, so it’s up to Arvid Soderblom and Drew Commesso to be the backstops for the Blackhawks. Soderblom has a .909 SV% in 11 starts.
Game Preview
Man, what a couple of days it’s been; Seattle has trouble with offense for the millionth time, everyone wonders if Ron Francis is actually gonna do anything to address it…and then BOOM! Kaapo Kakko is a Seattle Kraken.
Of course, now they still have to try and win a game; and even if the Hawks are a complete tire fire of a team at just about every strength beyond the man-advantage, they’re coming into this game on a two-game winning streak; having W’s from the Islanders and the Capitals. They even controlled most of the game against DC, so don’t expect a team whose soul has already been crushed; against all odds (and because they aren’t Buffalo), the Blackhawks are feeling themselves coming into this game.
Also, given the last couple of times the Kraken got to play an otherwise non-competitive team; I think it behooves Deep Blue to to play this game like it matters. And it should! Even if the Kraken are cursed to sit at 6th place in the division for the rest of the year, they should at least try to upkeep the equilibrium they’ve somehow managed to create. Who knows? Maybe they can find another heater to go on and start to scare the Wild Card a bit.
As for beating the Blackhawks, the reality is simple; there is plenty of evidence to suggest the Kraken will be overwhelmingly in charge of this game, so they must attack the net-front and they must force Arvid Soderblom or Drew Commesso to make tough saves. The Hawks defense could be best described as “present” if not “active participant”, so as long as they attack their backcheck with speed, they should be in a good position to take the lead and build upon it. The big thing the Kraken need to desperately avoid at this point is a simple issue that’s cost them against Ottawa and Tampa; running out of gas. They’ve started well through the first 20 minutes, but have frequently fallen into disarray past that opening period. They need to once again find a 60 minute effort, and if that means they need to beat up on the Blackhawks to do it?
Oh well, the Squids need it just as bad as the Blackhawks do.
LET’S GO KRAKEN, LET’S GO SQUIDS!