Chicago Blackhawks at Pittsburgh Penguins 7PM Eastern/6PM Central SportsNet Canada/ROOT/CSN Chicago
THE BUZZ
This game will officially mark the halfway point in the season for the hawks.
You know some of the lustre's come off Sidney Crosby (and I guess Jonathan Toews) when the big story of the game is facing Trevor Daley.
Don't look now, but the much-maligned Marc Andre' Fleury is putting together a pretty fine season (albeit marred by some injury) in net for the Penguins. His numbers (2.27 GAA, .927 save%) in 26 games are right there with Corey Crawford's. D Kris Letang is also ripping it up of late for the Pens.
This should be a good test of the Hawks' recent uptick in play.
THE NUMBERS
GFG/GAG CHICAGO 2.75/2.42 PITTSBURGH 2.37/2.37
POWER PLAY CHICAGO 23.6% PITTSBURGH 18.6%
PENALTY KILL CHICAGO 81.4% PITTSBURGH 84.1%
PROJECTED LINEUPS
Chicago
Shaw Toews Hossa Panarin Anisimov Kane Desjardins Danault Teravainen Bickell Rasmussen Garbutt
Keith Hjalmarsson Gustafsson Seabrook van Riemsdyk Rozsival
Crawford
Pittsburgh
Kunitz Crosby Perron Cullen Malkin Kessel Sheary Bonino Hornqvist Porter Fehr Plotnikov
Maatta Letang DuMoulin Lovejoy Warsofsky Daley
Fleury
I'll recap tomorrow.
JJ