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St. Louis Blues at Chicago Blackhawks 8PM Eastern/7 Central TSN/NBCSN
A little hyperbole in the title?
Maybe.
But I’ll submit to you, dear reader, that tonight’s game is a big statement game for your Chicago Blackhawks. And for the visiting St. Louis Blues.
The standings and the season series between the two teams suggest the Blues have supplanted the Hawks as the premier team in the league’s premier conference, and would therefore be the odds-on favorites to win this year’s Stanley Cup.
But it’s probably too early to say the Hawks have completely given up the ghost.
Still if there’s a game the Hawks need to win, or at least play as though they could win, it’s tonight’s matchup versus the Blues.
The Hawks were not all that great last night in Philadelphia, getting outshot 37-25. 2nd string goalie Antti Raanta was the hard luck loser, making 34 saves, but getting beaten on the gamewinner by a sick shot, high stick side, by Claude Giroux. Third pairing Nick Leddy and Sheldon Brookbank were both -2.
But on to tonight, and this is the kind of game the Hawks have risen up to win in convincing fashion this year—most recently, the Stadium Series matchup with the Penguins, after a hard luck loss in New York the night before.
The psychological stakes tonight are huge.
If the Hawks win, they reverse a season long trend vs. the Blues and give the Blues some anxiety—‘especially with some injuries starting to creep up on them.
If the Blues win, it only compounds the Hawks’ recent woes, and clearly implies that the Hawks can’t beat the Blues when it counts.
PROJECTED LINEUPS
St. Louis
Schwartz Steen Backes Berglund Sobotka Jaskin Morrow Roy Ott Porter LaPierre Reaves
Pietrangelo Bouwmeester Shattenkirk Jackman Cole Polak
Miller
Chicago
Versteeg Toews Hossa Bickell Smith Kane Sharp Handzus Shaw Bollig Kruger Regin
Keith Seabrook Oduya Hjalmarsson Leddy Brookbank
Crawford
Should be a heckuva game. All for now,
JJ