Game Preview: Hawks vs Ducks 3/12
Hawks take on the Ducks tonight at 7:30pm CT
| Hawks | Ducks |
|---|---|
| Foligno-Bedard-Kurashev | Jones-McTavish-Killorn |
| Blackwell-Dickinson-Anderson | Vatrano-Strome-Terry |
| Athanasiou-T.Johnson-Raddysh | Meyers-Lundestrom-Silfverburg |
| Donatao-Entwhistle-R.Johnson | Johnston-Groulx-Leason |
| Vlasic-Jones | Fowler-Zellweger |
| Korchinski-Megna | Mintyukov-Gudas |
| Tinordi-Zaitsev | Lacombe-Lindstrom |
| Mrazek | Dostal |
Tonight marks the second of three match ups between these two teams, the Hawks beating the Ducks 1-0 in their last matchup on Dec. 7. The Hawks have now started the “easy” part of the schedule as they play a handful of bad teams the rest of the way. But we all know how the Hawks play against bad teams and it’s often a crap shoot of what kind of Hawks team rolls out on the ice. Speaking of ice, let’s hope the conditions aren’t as bad as they were Sunday.
The Ducks find themselves in a familiar place in the standings as one of the Three Stooges of the NHL (Ducks-Sharks-Hawks). Nesting themselves comfortably in 30th place with 49 points and a record of 23-38-3, the Ducks are in the running (waddling?) for a top 5 draft pick again. After a decent start to the season, the Ducks (much like the Coyotes) are reminding everyone that they still suck. Coming off of a two game losing streak, the Ducks are 4-5-1 in their last 10 and have a -62 goal differential.
In their last five games, the Ducks have had tough teams to play against. The Islanders (who are deciding they aren’t boring anymore, thanks to Patrick Roy), spanked the Ducks 6-2 on Sunday. Dallas served the same type of spanking with a 6-2 Ducks loss on Friday. The Ducks managed a win over the Senators (2-1) and over a sad Devils team (4-3) while also keeping a close game in a 2-1 loss against the Canucks.
As far as the Ducks tank plan, it rolled on throughout the deadline. Sam Carrick (8 goals, 11 points) and Adam Henrique (18 goals, 42 points) were both traded to the Oilers. Jacob Perreault was traded to the Canadiens for Jan Mysak. And the Ducks picked up Ben Meyers from the Avs in return for a 5th round pick. Leo Carlsson is listed day-to-day with an upper body injury, which sucks as he’s been out since March 1st. Troy Terry and Mason McTavish both were cleared to play on March 8 as they were injured since Feb. 25 and Mar. 2 respectively. Trevor Zegras is still out with a broken ankle and hasn’t played since Jan. 9.
For our Men of Madison St., spirits are high as they have figured out how to beat bad teams. We’ll have to hope that they don’t relax on this Ducks team who are looking to break their small losing streak. Andreas Athanasiou is looking to be a lock tonight as Luke Richardson confirmed he is in the lineup. AA will be on the 3rd line as the left wing for Tyler Johnson and Taylor Raddysh. We would hope that once AA warms up he’ll eventually move up the line up. If we get the same kind of production from him last year it would be fun to see him replace Foligno on the 1st line, not that either of them really belong there.
It'll be interesting to see how their powerplay fairs against the Ducks. The Mighty Ducks boast a 75.2% PK, good enough for 27th. The Ducks use a Wedge +1 (1-1-2) PK setup which allows the F2 and the defensemen to cover the house while F1 pressures. This gives the powerplay a ton of space to utilize and for a team like the Blackhawks, who struggle to get set up, this should play out in our favor. Once set up, you can count on Connor Bedard to take advantage of this space and set up on the left for one-timers or on the right for his signature catch & release shot.
I expect the Hawks powerplay to take advantage of the Ducks.
Let's Go Hawks!