Viva Las Vegas: Blackhawks at Golden Knights Preview
The Blackhawks have their final game of the February schedule awaiting from on Thursday night in Sin City, where they’ll face the Vegas Golden Knights.
VGK enters this game atop the Pacific Division with 74 points in 58 games, although the Edmonton Oilers are two points behind with the same number of games played and the LA Kings also a factor at 70 points with a pair of games in hand on the two teams ahead of them. The Knights have sputtered a bit of late with a 4-4-2 record in their last 10, but neither of the teams chasing them have taken enough advantage of this mediocre stretch.
The biggest issue for the present and short-term future is the absence of top defenseman Shea Theodore, who reportedly broke his wrist during the first 4 Nations game and is described as “week to week,” which is better than “out for the season” but still not an encouraging sign, given his importance to VGK’s postseason hopes. William Karlsson is also on LTIR with a hamstring injury and, although he started skating last week, his return remains unknown as well. There’s still enough offensive punch here to give the Hawks fits, with Jack Eichel (a nice 69 points in 57 games) and Mark Stone (50 in 44) both checking in at over a point-per-game while Tomas Hertl (44 in 58) and Pavel Dorofeyev (36 in 58) provide additional depth scoring. There’s an old friend alert on this roster as well, with Brandon Saad joining the team after being fortunate enough to get the hell out of St. Louis earlier this month. He has three points (2 G, 1 A) in six games while skating 14:51 per night. He’ll be on the top line with Eichel and Stone for this one:
Little bit of mix up on the lines here at morning skate.Saad-Eichel-Stone⁰Dorofeyev-Hertl-Olofsson⁰Barbashev-Howden-Kolesar⁰Pearson-Roy-LavoieHague-Pietrangelo⁰Hanifin-Whitecloud⁰McNabb-Korczak— SinBin.vegas (@SinBinVegas) February 27, 2025
Ilya Samsonov is the first goalie off the ice. He'll get a second straight start tonight against Chicago.— SinBin.vegas (@SinBinVegas) February 27, 2025
While Chicago did manage a 5-3 win over this VGK side back in mid-January in one of the rare pleasant viewing experiences this season, the Knights have been a much more difficult team at home. Vegas is 20-6-3 on its own barn compared to just 14-12-3 on the road. Given that VGK likely remembers what happened in that prior meeting between these two teams, it’s unlikely that Chicago sneaks up on VGK this time around.
Speaking of those Hawks, it’s difficult to accurately explain how lopsided Tuesday’s 2-1 defeat against Utah was in spite of the one-goal margin at the end. That’s led to some movement among the team’s forwards, although Lukas Reichel appears destined for another night in the press box where he’ll apparently be joined by Nolan Allan so that TJ Brodie can rejoin the lineup. Hooray.
Blackhawks lines in morning skate in Vegas:Bertuzzi-Bedard-DonatoTeravainen-Foligno-MikheyevSlaggert-Nazar-DachMaroon-Kurashev-SmithMartinez-JonesVlasic-MurphyDel Mastro-BrodieMrazek— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) February 27, 2025
This has all the makings of a pretty hefty blowout, doesn’t it?
Let’s go Hawks, I guess.
Tale of the Tape
Blackhawks — Statistic — Golden Knights43.98% (32nd) — 5-on-5 Corsi For — 51.09% (10th)43.00% (31st) — 5-on-5 Expected goals for — 52.42% (7th)2.62 (29th) — Goals per game — 3.26 (t-7th)3.47 (30th) — Goals against per game — 2.74 (7th)44.9% (31st) — Faceoffs — 50.7% (t-14th)25.5% (t-6th) — Power play — 27.0% (t-4th)81.8% (t-6th) — Penalty kill — 76.9% (21st)
How to Watch
When: 9 p.m. CTWhere: T-Mobile Arena, Las VegasTV: CHSNWebstream: ESPN+, HuluRadio: WGN 720...
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