Final Projection: Blackhawks Opening Night Lineup
The Blackhawks’ disastrous preseason is finally in the books. Chicago only won one game in which only prospects were playing, but expectations are still high with the regular season beginning on Tuesday. The Blackhawks aren’t exactly in Stanley Cup contention, but this revamped team with an influx of new talent has a great chance to be better than last year’s squad.
With those roster changes came a nearly endless stream of changes to Chicago’s projected opening night lineup. With preseason over, we now have the clearest look at what that lineup could look like. Based on what we saw over the past few weeks, this group makes the most sense on opening night and is likely how the Blackhawks will line up Tuesday.
Tyler Bertuzzi – Connor Bedard – Teuvo Teravainen
Taylor Hall – Philipp Kurashev – Ilya Mikheyev
Nick Foligno – Jason Dickinson – Joey Anderson
Craig Smith – Ryan Donato – Pat Maroon
Alec Martinez – Seth Jones
TJ Brodie – Alex Vlasic
Isaak Phillips – Connor Murphy
Petr Mrazek
Arvid Soderblom
Extras: Lukas Reichel, Andreas Athanasiou, Nolan Allan
The first thing to look at when projecting lineups is who’s not included. After the respective preseason showings they had, Reichel and Athanasiou simply didn’t earn their roster spots. Reichel at least had a pretty good showing in the final game against mostly AHL talent, but Athanasiou even struggled there. There isn’t really anywhere to put them, so they’ll have to stand by for now. Reichel at least will get plenty of opportunities throughout the season, but Athanasiou’s outlook is a bit less promising.
Throughout most of the offseason and preseason, the assumption was that Foligno, Dickinson and Mikheyev would make up an exciting, all-around third line. With Reichel out of the top six now, though, someone had to take his place, and that someone is Mikheyev. Anderson is good enough defensively that this will still be a line that won’t allow many goals.
Those defensive pairings at first glance are a bit odd – why split up Jones and Vlasic, who made up Chicago’s only successful pairing last season? With more NHL talent on the roster this season, the Blackhawks have more options at the top – Vlasic is obviously a top-line talent, but can help out lower in the lineup and make Chicago’s defense a better overall group.
Soderblom is obviously just a placeholder until new acquisition Laurent Brossoit returns from injury. With a back-to-back scheduled for this Friday and Saturday, we could see Soderblom start one of those games, but then he’ll head back to Rockford, where he’ll only get the games that starter Drew Commesso doesn’t play.