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I'm opening with this tweet from Nick to highlight the fact that this "young" season ain't so young anymore. The good teams are starting to separate themselves from the early season pretenders.
As it stands today, the Chicago Blackhawks are not in the playoffs. Chicago sits at 21 points, 3 points out of a Wild Card spot. Not good based on those stats above.
That's not bad considering how many have deemed this as a complete teardown of a season. However, most of us know that there's more to it (especially with this Hawks team) than just points in the standings.
The Hawks take on the Washington Capitals tonight as they look to continue their momentum under new coach, Colliton.
The Caps have started sluggish and are 3rd in the Metro Division with 23 points (just 2 more than the Blackhawks). Could have something to do with all of those "Keg/Cup Stands" they did this summer.
Let's look at the fight cards for tonight's game:
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Blackhawks: 8-8-5 (21 points / 6th in Central)
2.67 GF/G = 26th
3.29 GA/G = 24th
14.1% PP = 29th
74.6 PK% = 27th
49.8 FO% = 17th
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Washington Capitals: 10-7-3 (23 points / 3rd in Metro)
3.35 GF/G = 7th
3.30 GA = 25th
29.7% PP = 4th
73.3 PK% = 29th
48.9 FO% = 20th
JL's player to watch:
On the injury front for Washington, Brooks Orpik is out for a while with a knee injury. Meanwhile, Kuznetsov and Oshie will be game-time decisions tonight. I'd be ok if they took an extra game off to recover.
Last season, the head-to-head matchup between these two featured a couple of real lopsided results:
Dec 6th – Washington was led by Ovechkin and Tom Wilson's 4-point performances for a 6-2 win. The Caps feasted on Berube and Forsberg in this game.
Feb 17th – Chicago got some revenge later in the year winning 7-1 with Jonathan Toews leading the way with 1 G and 2 A. Braden Holtby was lit up. Let's see if he or Phoenix Copley get the start tonight.
Jeremy Colliton kept the forward lines the same as last game's win, but his small tweak on defence will anger some fans for tonight's matchup should it stick; he inserted Manning-Rutta as the 3rd pairing, removing Gustav Forsling from the lineup.
Forsling has been very solid in his return averaging 16+ mins per game with 2 assists through 3 games. It would be surprising to see him taken out.
I joked on Twitter that maybe the Hawks are showcasing Manning and Rutta as an elite 3rd pairing duo. Then they can be packaged off together after this game. Hey, a boy can dream, can't he?
See ya out there,
JL
Chicago Blackhawks Blogger • 
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