Game Preview: Hawks @ Capitals 3/9

Keeping in the theme of this season, which is "things that don't matter," here's a game that really doesn't matter. I'm sure you have better things to do on a Saturday night than watch these two floating turds of a team play each other.

The Blackhawks finally ended a 22-roadgame losing streak in their last game, which was last Tuesday against the Coyotes. Will the Hawks be refreshed and ready to play against another team whose season is in the toilet? Maybe, who knows with these guys.

The Capitals are 29-23-9 and at 67 points, they are currently outside of the playoff picture. They are 6-3-1 in their last 10, having won their last game in a 6-0 beating of the Penguins. Evgeny Kuznetsov won't be making an AHL appearance after all, he was traded to the Hurricanes for a 3rd round pick. Joel Edmudson was also traded to the Leafs and Anthony Mantha was traded to the Golden Knights. What the Caps are now is a team that's going into a rebuild with their more skilled players being traded. Ovechkin has had a resurgence as of late and remains the only viable threat on this Caps team.

The Caps struggles this season haven't been a surprise other than the reality of Ovi's age stifling his goal-scoring. They struggle to generate offense as a whole and without Ovi to carry them the Caps generate 54.14 shot attempts per 60 min at 5v5. That's at the bottom of the league and just above the Hawks 51.84. You would think this is a good chance to let our defense not get caught up in puck watching.

On the blueline, things aren't horrible. They aren't good either as they give up 11.49 high-danger chances per 60 compared to the Hawks' 13.71 at 5v5.

For our Hawks, they sit uncomfortably tied with the Sharks for last place with a record of 16-42-5 for 37 points. It looks like Andreas Athanasiou will be out tonight, which would have bolstered the lineup a bit. Taylor Hall was practicing with the Hawks in a non-contact jersey, Luke Richardson doesn't expect him to play this season. Boris Katchouk was claimed off of waivers by the Senators, which opens up a lineup spot. Nikita Zaitsev is looking healthy enough to be in the lineup tonight.

Hawks will be resorting to their usual MO of chip-n-chase hockey. As long as they can manage puck retrievals and get set up, they shouldn't have too much of a hard time producing something. As you can see from the chart below, they aren't good at retrivals. The Hawks are forced to dump it in when Bedard isn't on the ice and they usually end up losing board battles to set up offense. Bedard's line needs to avoid getting hemmed in their own zone, which they like to do a lot. So long as Richardson doesn't matchup Bedard's line with Ovechkin's, it won't be too scary.

Don't take this game too seriously.

Let's Go Hawks.