Blackhawks vs Canucks: A good team awaits Chicago’s return home

The Chicago Blackhawks are in a bad way with a great team waiting to play them in their return home. A win over the Vancouver Canucks would be big for them.

The Chicago Blackhawks are finally back home after a dreadful road trip. They won their last home game on October 27th when they beat the Los Angeles Kings by a final score of 5-1. Since then they have played four straight road games and they were not good in any of them. They only took three out of a possible eight points and were lucky it wasn’t only two points with the way they played.

They were outshot 170-105 in the four games which are absolutely pathetic numbers. It was not a good road trip and they need to be better. They have a chance to play at home again but they will be hosting a very good Vancouver Canucks team. The Canucks are one of the surprise teams in the NHL as not many saw this hot of a start coming but they are 9-3-3 at the 15 game mark. That is a very good record and the sample size is large enough to think that they have a chance to sustain it.

So what is it that makes them so good? Their best players are all playing really well and they are all really young. Elias Pettersson, Bo Horvat, Brock Boeser, and Quinn Hughes amongst others make up a really nice young core. They get good goaltending from Jacob Markstrom and Thatcher Demko which also helps. This is going to need a full 60-minute effort from the entire team in order for the Chicago Blackhawks to have a chance.

This last stretch has obviously been an issue for the Blackhawks but it can be fixed if they just change a few things. This team has a roster that can beat teams by generating some chances and scoring goals. They had to be better defensively this year but they are missing what gave them a chance last year. They have good goaltending with Robin Lehner and Corey Crawford so trade some chances and score some goals. Patrick Kane has 13 points in 14 games which are very un-Kane like numbers. He had two shots on goal in San Jose and that is just not right.

Look for the Blackhawks to try and get back to that kind of game against the Canucks because what they have been doing isn’t working. Let Kane and Jonathan Toews off the leash and they should thrive. That style of play would also benefit guys like Dylan Strome and Alex DeBrincat amongst others so hopefully, they can all get hot and score some goals. This is the game to do so and if they don’t you might start to see some changes.