Blues vs Chicago Blackhaws - 1/24/16 game day preview

Blues vs Chicago Blackhaws - 1/24/16 game day preview The Blues end their pre-All-Star game schedule against the Central Division leading Chicago Blackhawks at 6PM CST at the United Center. The game can be seen on the NHL Network for those of you outside of Chicago and St. Louis. The Blackhawks are on a two game losing streak after rolling off 12 wins in a row. Given that those two losses were on the road against to the top two teams in the Atlantic division, I wouldn’t put much stock in the current losing streak. The Blackhawks have been incredible at home posting a 20-5-1 record. The Blues come off yet another failed attempt to close out the Colorado Avalanche, giving up a late goal and getting the loser point yet again. Speaking of loser points, the Blues have gotten points in 9 of their last 10 games though they only have 5 wins in those games. Both teams have been accumulating a lot of points, with both being in the top 6 in points per game. The game will feature the Hawks 4th best power play matching up against the Blues 3rd best penalty kill. Ironically, the Hawks penalty kill is 9th and the Blues power play is 10th. This might suggest that special teams have been a key to each team’s success. The Hawks are in the top 6 in both goals against and scoring. Much of their scoring success is due to Patrick Kane and Artemi Panarin. Kane leads the league in points (72) and goals (30) and is more 25% ahead of 2nd place in the points race. Panarin leads the league in rookie points (45) and goals (16) and is more than 33% ahead of 2nd place in the rookie points race. Corey Crawford is 2nd in the league in wins, 1st in shutouts, and 5th in save percentage for goalies with more than 10 games played. In reviewing the teams’ histories, it really surprised me to discover that Marian Hossa has 4 more goals against the Blues than Patrick Kane even though he has only played 3 more games. The review also showed that Scott Darling and Crawford are a combined 16-4-4 against the Blues. While the Blackhawks goalies have enjoyed a lot of success against the Blues, Brian Elliott has only gone 5-6-1 even though his numbers are very similar to Crawford. The Blues will look to shut down Kane and Panarin and hope to get someone other than Vladimir Tarasenko involved in the offense. Tarasenko has 6 goals and 4 assists in 12 games with 3 goals and 1 assist coming in 2 games this season. Perhaps Robby Fabbri will continue his point per game pace against the Hawks (1 goal, 1 assist in 2 games). On the injury front, it appears Jayden Schwartz will not return until after the all star break. On the shorter term front, the Blues defensive core is having rough luck this season. Joel Edmundson took a puck to the mouth in the morning skate yesterday and then Colton Parayko takes one to the mouth in the game. Hopefully they are getting all of the injury bad luck out of the way early in the season. As to the Blues lines, I expect them to start as follows: Steen – Stastny – Brouwer Fabbri – Lehtera – Tarasenko Berglund – Backes – Rattie Upshall – Brodziak – Jaskin Bouwmeester – Pietrangelo Gunnarsson – Shattenkirk Edmundson – Parayko Elliott Speaking of lineups, was anyone else surprised about the OT ice time and shootout selection against the Avalance? The team’s ice time management really confuses me at times. The OT ice selection almost seems like they are playing for a shootout sometimes. Parayko doesn’t get a shift and Fabbri gets a whopping 8 seconds in OT while Brouwer gets 1:09. I’d like to at least experiment with giving more ice time to the younger, more skilled players and going for the win more. Perhaps even more concerning is the management of the ice time of the defensemen. I am baffled as to how Carl Gunnarsson gets two shifts in the last 2:49 seconds of regulation. Of course, this happens because Joel Edmundson isn’t given a single shift in the last 5:32 of the third period and Colton Parayko didn’t see the ice in the last 3:53. As a result, a few defensemen who have already been having large workloads get even bigger workloads. Any chance this impacts the late goals they have given up lately? I think maybe so especially when you note that in the Detroit game Edmundson didn’t touch the ice in the last 3:17 and Benoit in the last 7:27. While I realize the Central is the toughest division in the league and every point matters, I think the team would be better served giving some of this ice time to younger players and letting them learn through coaching and experience and saving the veterans for key division rival games (i.e not Detroit), games that matter more later in the year and especially for key situations in the playoffs. I wish the coaches would focus more on coaching for longer term, playoff success rather than seemingly sweating every single regular season point. As far as the shootout, once I did more research at least I could understand Hitchcock’s selection of Brouwer. He and Jaskin were both 1 for 2 before Brouwer’s attempt. Lehtera was 1 for 3, Fabbri is 0 for 2 and Shattenkirk 0 for 5. I still would probably have gone with Shattenkirk or Lehtera in that situation over Brouwer but he was likely rewarding Brouwer’s fairly recent conversion. Notes from around the league: - The Blues have played in the 3rd most shootouts (6). Read what you will into that stat. - The Blackhawks and Lightning are the two hottest teams in the league earning 16 points in their last 10 games. - Anyone surprised that Columbus is currently leading the Matthews Cup (race to finish last)? - Colorado is climbing the bottom half of the Central division, going 7-3 in their last 10. - Ben Bishop should be raising some eyebrows as he has pushed is GAA down to 2.02. It’s a great day for hockey.