Three Players to Watch: CHI vs TBL
(Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)
The first game of the season didn’t look great for the Blackhawks. They actually started the game looking like the better team. Once Tampa scored their first goal, that completely went out the window.
If the Hawks are going to have a different outcome in tonight’s game, a lot of players will have to up their game. There were definitely some positives to take away from game 1. I talked about those in my 3 Questions video and Game 2 Preview podcast, if you want to check those out.
That said, I have three guys that I’ll be watching tonight.
Lucas Wallmark
In his Blackhawks debut, he looked decent. He had two really good shots on net. Hopefully he can build on that in game #2 and get his first point as a Hawk. Getting scoring up and down our lineup is going to be super important this season because there isn’t as much top-end talent as we’ve had in prior seasons. I think that Wallmark can be one of those contributors. I’m looking for that to start tonight.
Dominik Kubalik
Kubalik had one of the lowest TOI on the Blackhawks in game 1. Of course, he isn’t a penalty killer. That definitely played into the minutes he received since the Blackhawks took entirely too many penalties. After the game, coach Colliton said there were a lot of guys who didn’t have a great game, and he thinks he will have a big bounce back game. To that point, I say - Kubalik didn’t have a bad game. He had limited ice time with two new line mates and team mates. Do we see him get more ice time? Does that line mesh well and Pius Suter can show off why we signed him? All I know is I am looking at him to either get more ice time tonight, or prove that he deserves it by DOMinating the ice (hah! puns!).
Duncan Keith
I wanted to pick at least one defender and someone who had a bad game. There were 4 of them to choose from coming out of game 1. I have to go with the guy who is supposed to be our best defender. Duncan Keith has been here before. He has played through almost every game situation that a player can. He clearly still has the speed to his game, and he didn’t lose his hockey IQ overnight. Keith is a player to watch to see if he has a bounce back game or if this season is set to be a bad one for him - even though it’s a small sample size.
There you have it. Those are three players to keep an eye on tonight. I talked about two more players I’ll be watching in today’s podcast episode. You can go over there to get a preview for tonight’s action.
Let’s hope we have some more positive things to say after this one!