Chicago Blackhawks: Thursday’s game in Montreal is must win

The Chicago Blackhawks are in trouble. They sit 10 points out of a playoff spot right now with a lot of ground to makeup and a lot of teams to pass up. They need to win most of their games for the rest of their season to have a chance and even then it would be tough. Beating bad teams like the Montreal Canadiens is basically a must at this point.

Chicago was eight points out of a playoff spot when they hired Derek King to be their interim coach. Since then, they have played much better and have a winning record. With that, they still lost ground in the standings. They need to play better than good to have a chance this season.

The Hawks will be north of the border tonight to take on those Montreal Canadiens in their one visit there this season. The Habs are 6-18-3 one season after an appearance in the Stanley Cup Final. It is clear that this team is going nowhere this season so the Hawks can’t let these points slip away.

Marc-Andre Fleury is sitting on 499 wins so it will be interesting to see if he gets this start against the Canadiens. He had a rough game against the New York Rangers but it was mostly because his team played horribly in front of him during the third period of that game. Derek King could opt to go with him or use Kevin Lankinen and save Fleury for the high octane Toronto Maple Leafs.

The Chicago Blackhawks need to dominate the Montreal Canadiens tonight.

In order to beat the Canadiens, outside of good goaltending, is obvious. The Hawks just need to play their game. They are better than Montreal so if everyone does their job, they should win. This is an outstanding opportunity for guys like Patrick Kane, Alex DeBrincat, and Seth Jones to have magical nights on the scoresheet. These guys should match up well against this Canadiens team.

One player to keep an eye on in this game is Jonathan Toews. He has no goals on the season with only nine assists to go with it. Coming back from missing the entire year in 2020-21 cant be easy but the Hawks will be much better off if the captain gets going. This game against the Canadiens is perfect for him to finally score that goal.

As mentioned before, this is a must-win. If the Hawks can’t beat the team with the second-fewest points in the NHL, they will certainly not even come close to the playoffs. If they can get this done, they can go into Toronto feeling good about their game.