6:00pm CST
United Center
TV/Radio: WGN/WGN

PROJECTED STARTERS

Chicago – Cam Ward (6–5–4, SV%: .890, GAA: 3.82)
Florida– James Reimer (5–7–3, SV%: .887, GAA: 3.48)

TEAM STATISTICS

Power Play
Chicago (12.5%, 31st)
Florida (28.1%, 3rd)

Penalty Kill
Chicago (73.8%, 31st)
Florida (78.1%, 21st)

Shorts for/against
Chicago (31.8, T-15th; 34.1, 28th)
Florida (34.7, 3rd; 31.0, 14th)

Shooting %
Chicago (8.9%, T-25th)
Florida (9.1%, T-22th)

Faceoff %
Chicago (50.0%,17th)
Florida (49.9%, 18th)

Avg. height/weight
Chicago 6’1”, 197lbs
Florida 6’1” 199lbs

PROJECTED LINES/PAIRINGS

Chicago Blackhawks
Brandon Saad–Jonathan Toews–Dominik Kahun
Artem Anisimov–Dylan Strome–Patrick Kane
Alex DeBrincat–David Kampf–Dylan Sikura
Chris Kunitz–Jacob Nilsson–Brendan Perlini
Duncan Keith–Erik Gustafsson
Gustav Forsling–Brent Seabrook
Carl Dahlstrom–Connor Murphy

Florida Panthers
Jonathan Huberdeau–Aleksander Barkov–Evgeni Dadonov
Frank Vatrano–Henrik Borgstrom–Mike Hoffman
Denis Malgin–Jared McCann–Troy Brouwer
Micheal Haley–Colton Sceviour–Jayce Hawryluk
Keith Yandle–Aaron Ekblad
Mike Matheson–MacKenzie Weegar
Bogdan Kiselevich–Mark Pysyk

Analysis

The Blackhawks take their home ice tonight riding a three-game winning streak, the first of the season. Florida has won three of four games, winning in Detroit last night 2 – 1.

During the streak, Chicago is averaging 3.00 goals for and only 1.33 goals against. That goals against average is unattainable for a whole season, but is a great showing of improvement on the blue line and in the net.

Forward Jacob Nilsson makes his NHL debut tonight for Chicago. The 25-year old from Swede played thirty-one games in Rockford, this season, before the call up. This is Nilsson’s first year playing in North America.

Panthers forward Evgeni Dadonov scored the game winning goal last night, in Detroit. The 29-year old Russian leads the Panthers in goals (17) and second in points (34) behind only forward Jonathan Huberdeau (42) in points.

Comment below in our live game thread tonight!

And look for the internet’s most robust recap of the game tomorrow morning on the-rink.com. 

The post Preview/Game Thread: Blackhawks vs Panthers appeared first on The Rink.