The Chicago Blackhawks will celebrate their annual “Hockey Fights Cancer” night at the United Center on Sunday. This game will take place against the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers.
Florida, coming off an emotional overtime win over the Minnesota Wild one night prior (courtesy of Brad Marchand), comes into Sunday 27-20-3. The Blackhawks are 21-22-8. Both teams are alive in very different Wild Card races, but each needs all the points it can get.
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Scouting Florida
The Florida Panthers enter Sunday five points out of the playoffs. The Atlantic Division is loaded, and a couple of very good teams will miss out as a result. Being the defending champs doesn’t get you any grace in the standings.
Florida is without its best player, Sasha Barkov. He was injured during training camp and is likely to miss the entire season. Matthew Tkachuk, who is also a game-breaking forward, just returned for the first time last week.
Verhaeghe – Rodrigues – Reinhart
Greer – Bennett – Tkachuk
Luostarinen – Lundell – Marchand
Vilmanis – Kunin – Samoskevich
Forsling – Ekblad
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Mikkola – Balinskis
Bjornfot – Petry
Tarasov
Future Hall of Famer Sergei Bobrovsky started in their win over the Wild, so Daniil Tarasov is projected to be the starter. With the way Florida defends and plays when they do have the puck, they have full confidence in both guys.
Brad Marchand, who scored in overtime on Saturday, is still a game breaker at his age. Sam Reinhart, Sam Bennett, Anton Lundell, and Carter Verhaeghe are also players you game-plan for. With that many impactful forwards, it is no wonder that they’ve been in the final for three straight years.
On defense, they are missing Seth Jones, who is going to be missing from the Olympics as well. Even without him, Aaron Ekblad and Gustav Forsling play a key role in their championship-caliber defending.
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Projected Lines, Defense Pairs, & Goalie For Chicago
The Chicago Blackhawks are coming off a 2-0-1 stretch. They didn’t play perfect hockey against the Carolina Hurricanes and Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday and Friday’s back-to-back games, but they still found a way to earn three of four points.
Moore-Bedard-Burakovsky
Greene-Nazar-Lardis
Bertuzzi-Dickinson-Mikheyev
Donato-Foligno-Slaggert
Vlasic-Crevier
Kaiser-Levshunov
Grzelcyk-Murphy
Knight
During the morning skate, Jeff Blashill had Oliver Moore and Nick Lardis seperated, but both are in the top six. This is an opportunity for Connor Bedard and Frank Nazar to skate with talented and speedy wingers around their age. Moore has played better as a center, and with Bedard, he will take faceoffs and be involved in all three zones.
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Spencer Knight will get the start for Chicago against his old team. After a great goaltending performance all around last week, Knight is looking to keep it going.
Colton Dach and Sam Lafferty are the healthy scratches here. As of now, there are no illnesses to report; only Teuvo Teravainen is still out with an injury.
How To Watch
The game can be heard locally on AM 720 WGN in the Chicagoland area. To view this game, it is available on CHSN locally and on NHL Network nationally. The puck will drop shortly after 6:00 PM CT.
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