Chicago Blackhawks (21-13-4) at Colorado Avalanche (18-17-2) 7PM Central/6PM Mountain ALT/CSN Chicago
THE BUZZ
Avalanche netminder Semyon Varlamov is one of the league's more enigmatic players. He can be absolutely terrible and absolutely brilliant at times. A little bit like his countryman, Columbus goalie Sergei Bobrovsky—although Bob tends to be more consistent. Regardless, the Blackhawks encounter Varlamov tonight in Denver when he is on a hot streak: 7-2-1 with a 1.68 GAA in his last ten games. Making matters worse, Varlamov seems to save his best games for Chicago. The Blackhawks come into this game off a 7-5 win over the Coyotes, which had some signs of encouragement for Chicago, but also underscored ongoing problems like poor production at even strength, and getting outshot yet again. A big positive of Chicago in the game was the play of rookie defenseman Erik Gustafsson. Although Gustafsson will be tested more tonight versus a fast Avalanche club.
THE NUMBERS
GOALS PER GAME Chicago 10th 2.71 Colorado 5th 2.86
POWER PLAY Chicago 4th 23.3%
GOALS AGAINST PER GAME Chicago 11th 2.47 Colorado 21st 2.76
PENALTY KILL Chicago 10th 81.5% Colorado 15th 80.4%
PROJECTED LINEUPS
Chicago
Shaw Toews Hossa Panarin Anisimov Kane Desjardins Danault Teravainen Bickell Rasmussen Garbutt
Keith Hjalmarsson van Riemsdyk Seabrook Gustafsson Rozsival
Crawford
Colorado
Landeskog Soderberg Comeau Martinsen Mitchell Duchene Tanguay Mackinnon Iginla McLeod Grigorenko Skille
Beauchemin Johnson Holden Barrie Gormley Redmond
Varlamov
I'll recap tomorrow,
JJ