Blackhawks Injuries Piling Up
During the Blackhawks’ morning skate broadcast on Friday, coach Joel Quenneville indicated the team would be without a number of key players for tonight’s game against Carolina.
Patrick Kane’s regular season is done, which we already knew. Quenneville also indicated that defenseman Michal Rozsival will miss a few more games. Brandon Saad won’t play against the Canes as he continues to recover from an upper-body injury, and Bryan Bickell is also out of the lineup with an injury.
Jeremy Morin will play tonight, but Teuvo Teräväinen will not. The Hawks expect newly-signed forward Matt Carey to join the team later on Friday.
Wow…problems for the Hawks tonight in a must win game at home…yikes…
Even with Morin, we only have 11 forwards so that means BB on the wing (ugh) and Rundblad skating with Leddy (wow).
Shaw’s 3rd line is going to be ugly and I don’t see how Q can roll 4 lines…this is what I see for tonight…
Versteeg-Toews-Hossa
Sharp-Smith-Morin
Zus-Shaw-BB
Bollig-Kruger-Regin
We are going to need big minutes from the 1st, 2nd and 4th lines tonight, plus the top 4 DMen are all going to have to play over 22 minutes…
Even with TT in for Sunday, we need either Bickell or Saad to play…
Scott Powers just reported these lines today…
Lines are:
Versteeg-Toews-Hossa
Sharp-Handzus-Shaw
Regin-Smith-Morin
Bollig-Kruger-Brookbank
I think its a mistake to break up the 4th line with BB…they needed to skate big minutes tonight…and Smith should have been given Sharp and Morin…that would have been a good line for us…Handzus at Centre simply wastes Sharp for tonight and we need his production…oh well…
Note: the 4th line has been broken up for over a week since Smith bumped to 2C…
Quenneville will throw those in a blender quickly. I would guess Smith is between Shaw & Sharp for a lot of the night and Kruger shifts w/ Morin & Bollig in “3rd” line minutes. Regin looked OK against St. Louis but didn’t take any draws… let Zus babysit him & Brookbank and worry about killing penalties.
I hope Morin has a huge game
Letting my mind be transported to mid April …
Bickell-Toews-Kane
Saad-TT-Hossa
Sharp-Smith-Shaw
Bollig-Kruger-Morin
But in the meanwhile we get Handzus, Regin and Brookbank.
ER you forgot Versteeg… but that’s alright, Hawks don’t have as much depth as other teams?
That’s a great lineup and would be very difficult to beat. The next few weeks could get very interesting, hopefully the main participants can get some well needed rest for a long cup run.
oops – how could I forget Steeger?
Amended dream lineup (sorry Jeremy):
29-19-88
20-86-81
10-28-23
52-16-65
If anyone saw the interview with Morin. He looks like hes going to rip someones head off, in a calm and nice way.
I think Morin is going to bring it good these next few games.
Want to see him on a offensive line, please.
Foley indicated that Saad and Bickell were lower body day to day. I thought Saad was dealing with a concussion?