Game Preview: Hawks vs Penguins - 2/15/2024
Gametime lines are not updated at the time of this posting. Lines will be posted on my Instagram, @eth_blackhawks_blog. Stats from Natural Stat Trick.
It's time for another game preview.
The Hawks will be hosting the Pittsburg Penguins tonight at 7:30pm CT.
Last Meetup
Embed from Getty ImagesThe last time these two met was way back on October 10. That was the night that Connor Bedard made his NHL debut. The first game of the season. The start of a wild roadgame onslaught to tour the boy wonder.
Our roster was filled with Blackhawks legends like Taylor Hall, Corey Perry, Andreas Athanasiou, Connor Murphy, and of course, Connor Bedard.
All of those players are hurt now or had their contract terminated.
Boy, have times changed.
The Blackhawks would win their first game of the season 4-2. Ryan Donato, Cole Guttman, Jason Dickinson, and Nick Foligno would all score. For the Pens, their scorers would be Bryan Rust and Sidney Crosby. Jason Dickinson, Nick Foligno, and Corey Perry would finish the night as points leaders with 2 a piece.
Hawks would somewhat struggle to gain a foothold in this game until Donato scored late in the second period to make it 2-1. The third period would see the Hawks score 3 goals to win it.
Of course, the highlight of this game was just watching Bedard faceoff against his childhood hero, Sidney Crosby.
Those were the days, weren't they?
The Penguins
Things haven't been looking great for the Penguins this season.
They are 7th in the Metro with a 23-20-7 record and 7 points out of a wild card spot.
The Pens are coming off of a 5-2 loss on Wednesday night. The Florida Panthers handed them their 20th loss of the season and it looks like Jake Guentzel got injured. He left the third period with what seems to be an upper body injury.
Rust and John Ludvig got the only goals in that loss.
In their last 10, the Penguins are 3-5-2. They've also had a 49.23 expected goals share percentage (xGF) and an actual goals share (GF) percentage of 45.16%. Not good but much better than how the Hawks are looking (you'll see...).
The points leaders for the Pens aren't surprising. Crosby leads in goals with 28 and ties Guentzel for points with 52. Guentzel has 22 goals and 30 assists.
On the blue line Kris Letang has 4 goals and 26 assists. Erik Karlsson has 7 goals and 30 assists.
Tristan Jarry has a 2.52 Goals Against Average (GAA) and a Save Percentage of .913 in 35 games. Backup Alex Nedeljkovic (have fun with that name, Vosters) has played 17 games and has a2.63 GAA and a .917 SV%.
On to the boys in the Madhouse.
The Blackhawks
The Hawks are coming off a 4-2 loss to the Vancouver Canucks, their 7th loss in a row.
Don't expect too much from this roster. Not much is changing until Bedard is back.
The Hawks were suppressed pretty easily in their game against the Canucks. Their first line had an atrocious 9.09 Corsi. The Tyler Johnson line faced 10 5v5 shot attempts while having 1 of their own.
Embed from Getty ImagesThe top-6 can't generate any offense. There's really nothing else to say about that. When your top line is Kurashev-Johnson-Raddysh you really can't expect anything more.
Petr Mrazek is one of, if not the only, reason why the Blackhawks have kept their games close. He faced 38 shots on goal against the Canucks and made 34 saves. While a .895 SV% isn't great, he did alright against high-danger shots, saving 13 of 16.
It's those high-danger shots that shouldn't be happening. That falls on the defense. If they stick to their box+1, which is fairly simple to understand, they should be pushing shot attempts to outside of the attack zone.
But they don't.
The Hawks defense needs to tighten up their game. On one hand we have a defensive core made up of rookies who are bound to make mistakes. And let me be clear. These mistakes are ok for the sake of learning. But they need to help Mrazek or Arvid Soderblom (please help Soderblom).
Looking at their last 10 games, the Hawks are 2-7-1. They've had a 44.01 Corsi (5v5), which means their opponents have been dominating puck possession. Their xGF% is 42.48% and their actual goals share percentage is an ugly 25%. That's horrible.
They have faced 125 high danger chances and gave away 13 high danger goals. The next worse team are the Canadiens who gave away 107 high danger chances.
Their PDO indicates some puck luck not going their way as it's a .947. However, there's a lot more than just puck luck factoring in this. It's skill. I'm sure Boris Katchouk's inability to finish his chances play a part in this.
This is a BAD team.
Predictions
The Hawks can win this. The Penguins just lost their only good player that isn't named Sidney Crosby (Jake Guentzel) and will be playing back-to-back games.
This Hawks should win this.
Which, unfortunatly, means they will play down to their competition and get smoked.
I love my Hawks, but I think the Penguins win tonight (please make me eat my words).
Let's Go Hawks!