Chicago Blackhawks (27-27-8, 62 points) at Columbus Blue Jackets (30-26-5, 65 points)
7:00PM Eastern/6:00 Central
RADIO: WGN 720
TV: NBCSCH
PROJECTED GOALIES:
Arizona:
Sergei Bobrovsky (25-20-5 W-L | 2.45 GAA | 0.919 SV% | 4 SO)
Chicago:
Anton Forsberg (7-12-3 W-L | 2.90 GAA | 0.910 SV% | 0 SO)
PROJECTED LINES/PAIRINGS:
Columbus
Artemi Panarin – Pierre-Luc Dubois – Cam Atkinson
Boone Jenner – Alexander Wennberg – Oliver Bjorkstrand
Matt Calvert – Brandon Dubinsky – Josh Anderson
Markus Hannikainen – Lukas Sedlak – Zac Dalpe
Zach Werenski – Seth Jones
Jack Johnson – Ryan Murray
Scott Harrington – David Savard
Chicago
Brandon Saad – Jonathan Toews – Tommy Wingels
Tomas Jurco – Artem Anisimov – Patrick Kane
Anthony Duclair – Nick Schmaltz – Alex DeBrincat
Ryan Hartman – David Kampf – Vinnie Hinostroza
Duncan Keith – Jordan Oesterle
Erik Gustafsson – Jan Rutta
Connor Murphy – Brent Seabrook
STATISTICAL COMPARISONS:
Power play:
Columbus – 14.1% (31st)
Chicago – 15.8% (29th)
Penalty kill:
Columbus – 76.3% (27th)
Chicago – 82.7% (6th)
Corsi For % (5-on-5):
Columbus – 51.7% (7th)
Chicago – 53.5% (3rd)
Faceoffs:
Columbus – 47.7% (28th)
Chicago – 49.5% (19th)
SUMMARY:
The Blackhawks come into this game after a solid 3-1 win the previous night against the San Jose Sharks, at the United Center. They will travel to Columbus for this game and then return home for a short four day break, before heading out to San Jose on Thursday 3/1, following the trade deadline.
This may be the last time you see some of the players that will be in the lineup tonight. If reports come true, players like Tommy Wingels, Lance Bouma, and even Artem Anisimov could be playing elsewhere by Monday’s trade deadline.
Anisimov would be interesting, because the rumor has been that these very Blue Jackets would be the team trying to acquire him.
As far as the game goes, the Blackhawks will be facing that very familiar name of Artemi Panarin. As far as the rest of the team goes, they are are struggling much like the Blackhawks. In fact, they are only three points apart as far as records go. The difference is that Columbus is hanging on to the second wild card spot in their conference, while the Blackhawks sit ten points behind the second wild card spot in their conference.
The Blue Jackets went from one of the top power play teams in the league, last season, to being even worse than the terribly inept Blackhawks power play, if you can imagine that.
If you’re at the game, go find Jaeckel and throw Ju-Ju Bees at him.
Expect a recap early in the AM
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