After a forgetful game one in Vegas on Tuesday, the Blackhawks are in Utah and look to get back on track. It felt like a rivalry in the making last season. Every time these two teams played it was chippy and emotional on both sides.
It’s only the second game of the season and we have already seen three different forward lineups. Andrew Mangiapane will not play on the rest of the road trip after getting hurt in the second period vs Vegas, Teuvo Teravainen will slot in as a replacement.
Projected Blackhawks lines:
Bertuzzi – Frondell – Kane
Teravainen – Kantserov – Lardis
Donato – Nazar – Moore
Smith – Greene – Greenway
Vlasic – Byram
Kaiser – Levshunov
Cole – Rinzel
Korchinski – Del Mastro*
Knight
*Korchinski and Del Mastro took reps in practice, it is unknown whether they play tonight or not.
These lines do make more sense than what Jeff Blashill put out in Vegas. Frondell gets his chance at first line center, where he will play with a distributor in Patrick Kane, and a puck retriever in Tyler Bertuzzi.
Teravainen goes from healthy scratch to the second line, giving the Blackhawks more playmaking options. Teravainen is playing with two shooters in Kantserov and Lardis. A defensively reliable second line with speed and two players who can score.
The third line is all speed with Ryan Donato, Frank Nazar, and Oliver Moore. Bumping Donato out of the top six is probably the right decision as he is best used as a depth scoring option.
The fourth line stays intact, as it was easily their best trio on Tuesday.
Watch for Bowen Byram to have a bounce back game. Byram looked great in the preseason, but the nerves of game one got to him. “I just think we weren’t necessarily dialed in on what we had to do, and it showed in the first…30, 45 minutes of the game” (via Ben Pope on X)
The key for Chicago is simple hockey. They tried to be way too fancy in Vegas, firing blind passes up the middle. If the Blackhawks can make the short, simple plays tonight, they will see more success.
Utah is a team with a lot of speed who will be looking to attack off the rush, something the Blackhawks struggled to defend against Vegas on Tuesday.
“You either have to be right down on the puck down the walls or you have to be inside the dots. If you’re in between at all, which we were a couple of times, they fly out of the zone and it’s going to be a 2-on-1 instantaneously.” Jeff Blashill on defending the rush (Via Ben Pope on X).
Projected Mammoth lines:
Keller – Schmaltz – Trocheck
Lee – Cooley – Guenther
Crouse – Hayton – McBain
O’Brien – Stenlund – But
Sergachev – Weeger
Schmidt – Marino
Simashev – Peeke
Vejmelka
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