Tonight, the Blackhawks finally return to the ice as they open up their preseason schedule against the St. Louis Blues. Its an exciting time for Hawks fans as we are going to get our first look at Connor Bedard on MadHouse Ice. Tonight will be the first time Bedard plays against NHL-quality players, and no matter how he performs, it needs to be taken with a grain of salt and not overreact one way or the other.
I am excited to watch this lineup tonight, as it looks pretty close to what we should expect when this team kicks off the season in just 12 days. Marcel Marcel, Nick Lardis, and Martin Misiak will likely get reassigned after this one, so it will be a nice taste for them and a great opportunity for us to see what they can do even in such a small sample size.
I really am starting to like this top six. I know there is no reason to fall in love with or get too attached to anything with this team, but these top six lines seem to have a great balance. Reichel and Kurashev showed some great chemistry last season, so I am very excited to see if they can replicate that once more.
As for the D group, I am interested to see how Kaiser plays with Jones. I never realized how highly he was viewed as a defensive prospect, but apparently a lot of people like his potential. The other player to really keep an eye on is Korchinski. We have debated a lot on these blogs as to whether or not he should be on this team. Now we finally get to see how he performs against better talent.
(preseason) Hockey is back, and it's just exciting to know that there is Blackhawks hockey tonight. There are lots of storylines out there, and we are going to start to see how they play out. My three players to watch tonight are pretty obvious: Bedard, Korchinski, and Kaiser. Puck drop is at 7:30 p.m. central time, with coverage on NBCSN in Chicago. As always, let's go Hawks!
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