The Blackhawks return to Tampa Bay where the season began. With lumps taken and lessons learned in the first two series, hopefully the Hawks are now poised to elevate their play and finally beat the Lightning.
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Game Day
Game 31, March 18: Blackhawks @ Lightning 6:00pm CST
Records: Blackhawks, 14-11-5, 33 Pts (4th) Lightning, 20-6-2, 42 Pts (1st)
Season Series: 1-3-1
Goals For/Game: Blackhawks, 3.00 (16th) Lightning, 3.61 (1st)
Goals Against/Game: Blackhawks, 3.20 (23rd) Lightning, 2.36 (4th)
Power Play: Blackhawks, 26-92, 28.3% (4th) Lightning, 27-95, 28.4% (3rd)
Penalty Kill: Blackhawks, 68-93, 73.1% (27th) Lightning, 81-95, 85.3% (6th)
For Tampa Bay, Nikita Kucherov, Mitchell Stephens, Marian Gaborik, and Anders Nilsson are on LTIR. Also, neither the Hawks nor the Bolts have any players on the NHL COVID-19 Protocol List.
The Lightning projected lineup (per DailyFaceoff.com):
Palat - Point - Cirelli Killorn - Gourde - Stamkos Goodrow - Johnson - Coleman Maroon - Joseph - Volkov
Hedman - Rutta McDonagh - Cernak Sergachev - Foote
Vasilevskiy McElhinney
Also available: Ross Colton (C), Taylor Raddysh (W), Andreas Borgman (D), Luke Schenn (D), Spencer Martin (G).
With how potent the Tampa Bay lineup is, it's essentially a "pick your poison" situation. The top 2 lines can kill you on the scoreboard. The bottom 2 lines will grind you down while chipping in timely goals.
On the blueline -- and just as Aaron Ekblad demonstrated in the last series versus the Panthers -- Victor Hedman proves in every game why he is one of the best all-around defensemen in the NHL.
A storyline to keep an eye on is whether the Lightning try to exact revenge on Connor Murphy who delivered a huge hit to Erik Cernak that impacted his head. One would think the Bolts took down Murphy's number.
For Chicago, look for Kevin Lankinen to get both games. The forwards are likely to remain the same save for line blending. And the blueline could see the rookie carousel spinning for whoever's turn is next.
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Rockford Updates
On the Move: We have loaned goalie Tom Aubrun to the @IndyFuel. Fuel start a 7-game road trip tonight at @Wichita_Thunder. https://t.co/VFEgA1Zanp
— Rockford IceHogs (@goicehogs) March 17, 2021
Morris has only one start plus a relief appearance yet seems set as the backup. However, Nalimov is expected to earn his first pro start in North America soon so he could give Morris competition for that role.
One more thought on Tomkins is that if he contains to improve sharply as he has of late, he could bump Collin Delia down the depth chart and take over as 3rd string. In turn, that could make Delia expendable as trade bait.
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See you on the boards!