Blackhawks vs. Sharks: Rounding out the California road trip
The Chicago Blackhawks are rounding out their California swing with a game against the San Jose Sharks and a win would be huge for them coming home.
The Chicago Blackhawks had a couple of dud losses in a row before getting a good win against the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday night. They stayed with the Ducks for the whole game in terms of shots and giving themselves a chance to win. The win came in overtime thanks to a great play made by Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane. Now, they will visit the San Jose Sharks to round out their visit to California.
They can consider it a successful California road trip if they win this game in San Jose. They were destroyed in all facets of the game against the Kings, but still managed to get a point. Then, they defeated the Ducks, so a win vs. the Sharks would secure five out of six points. On paper, the Sharks are the most talented of the three California teams but they are off to a nightmare start. At 4-10-1 they are dead last in the Western Conference. Nobody saw this coming, which is why it might be a trap for the Blackhawks.
The San Jose Sharks are loaded with superstars. They should have nine standings points 15 games into the season with players like Brent Burns, Erik Karlsson, Logan Couture, Timo Meier, and Tomas Hertl amongst others in their lineup. They have gotten very poor goaltending from Martin Jones and Aaron Dell but they still need to be better as a team. For a team that was in the Western Conference Finals just six months ago, they should not be this bad.
Every game the Sharks play in they are going to show their best effort until they get out of their slump. There are no guarantees that it will ever happen because the NHL is a cruel place but they are definitely going to try. If the Blackhawks don’t play a great hockey game, they are going to get destroyed. This San Jose team is desperate, so the Blackhawks need to be desperate too. They only have two more points than San Jose so it’s not like they’re this powerhouse team compared to them either.
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Adam Boqvist has had a relatively strong NHL debut over these two games on the West Coast. He is going to continue to play for a while because they believe in him for the long term. It is still a question on whether or not he will play the rest of the season with Chicago or Rockford but he should definitely be playing in this game against the Sharks. The Blackhawks are going to need the rest of their defense to show up if they are going to keep the Sharks from finding their way. This is a good test for them as they look for some momentum before coming home.