Blackhawks vs. Kings: Chicago needs win in the worst way

The Chicago Blackhawks are coming off a terrible loss and need to win in any way they can when they visit the Los Angeles Kings.

The Chicago Blackhawks need to do whatever it takes to defeat the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday night. The Kings are a much worse team than the Blackhawks on paper, and Chicago proved it when they hosted the Kings last week. It was probably the best overall game played by the Blackhawks, to date, this season, which isn’t really saying much. But, they handled their business.

The Blackhawks know they need to be better than they were against the Nashville Predators on Tuesday night as that was one of the worst performances the team has had in the Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane era. The Predators are an elite team and good enough to win the Stanley Cup, but no NHL team should be outshot 51-20. Robin Lehner deserved to be the team MVP, for only giving up three goals on those 51 shots. They, of course, all went to Nick Bonino for the hat trick. The Hawks need to be better against the King,s and you can trust that they will be.

We will find out throughout the day if it is, in fact, going to be the NHL debut of top prospect Adam Boqvist. There is a good chance it happens, because they would not have called him up if they weren’t going to use him. The Kings are also the worst of the three California teams so there really is no better opportunity for him to get his feet wet than against Los Angeles.

The Kings aren’t great, but they still have great players like Anze Kopitar, Dustin Brown, and Drew Doughty that can impact plays in ways not many others can, so the Blackhawks still need to come ready to play. This is definitely still an old playoff rivalry because of the fact that these teams won five Stanley Cups in a six-year span. They also beat each other en route to a few of those Cups, so that will always be a fond memory.

The Blackhawks were supposed to be using Robin Lehner and Corey Crawford in a split this season, but Lehner has simply played better and has started four of the last five. He was brilliant against the onslaught that the Predators threw at him, so it will be interesting to see which guy Jeremy Colliton rolls with.

As for Los Angeles, you can expect to see their longtime net-minder Jonathan Quick. Either way, the goalie matchup is a fun one no matter what. The Blackhawks need this win bad, so expect them to come out of the gates with ice in their veins.