The Vancouver Canucks are in Chicago to face the Blackhawks\u00a0on Friday night\u00a0in the first game of a short,\u00a0two-game road trip.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Friday\u2019s game will be\u00a0the third and final matchup of the season between the Canucks and Blackhawks. Both teams have picked up a win against each other this\u00a0season,\u00a0but the two teams have not played since early November.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Canucks will play back-to-back games on Friday and Saturday, before returning home for an eight-game homestand. They play in\u00a0Winnipeg,\u00a0against the Jets on Saturday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Quick Hits on the Competition\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Blackhawks come into Friday\u2019s game with a 23-28-10 record. They sit seventh in the Central Division.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They are 2-6-3 in their last 11 games.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Connor Bedard leads the team with 57 points (25g-32a) through 48 games played.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tyler Bertuzzi has a team-leading 26 goals this\u00a0season,\u00a0and\u00a0also\u00a0leads the Hawks\u00a0with10\u00a0power play goals.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Alex Vlasic is the\u00a0leading man\u00a0on defence. He has two goals and 13\u00a0assists\u00a0this season while averaging 21:11 of ice time per game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Spencer Knight has started 42 games this season, and posts a .908% save percentage, 2.62 goals-against average, and has three shutouts.\u00a0Only eight\u00a0goaltender\u00a0have three or more shutouts this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Blackhawks\u2019 power play ranks 18th\u00a0in the league, clicking at 19.7%.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Their penalty kill is number one in the league, killing off 85.9% of their penalties.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Story: H\u00f6glander\u00a0is\u00a0Finding his Game\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nils H\u00f6glander has been buzzing around the ice in the past few\u00a0games and\u00a0found the back of the net for the first time on Wednesday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He has four scoring chances in his last two\u00a0games, and\u00a0skated on a line with Elias Pettersson and Conor Garland on Wednesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt felt\u00a0good,\u00a0it feels like I\u2019ve been waiting for that a little bit now, [it] was nice to score,\u201d said H\u00f6glander after Wednesday\u2019s game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He wants to build\u00a0off of\u00a0his line\u2019s strong play on Wednesday and enjoys the opportunity to skate up the lineup on Pettersson\u2019s line.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Though the first three-quarters\u00a0of the season has not gone his way, he is looking forward\u00a0toi\u00a0having a good showing in the final 21 games of the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like, just forget the first half and just look\u00a0forward.\u00a0We’re\u00a0at 21 more games and [I\u2019m] just looking forward to those,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Canucks\u2019 Top Performers over the Last Five Games\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Filip Hronek: 1g-2a-3p\u00a0
Elias Pettersson: 0g-3a-3p\u00a0
Evander Kane: 2g-0a-2p\u00a0
P.O. Joseph, Dew O\u2019Connor, Brock Boeser, Marco Rossi, and Liam \u00d6hgren: 1g-1a-2p\u00a0<\/p>\n
When and Where to Watch\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Wednesday\u2019s game is at 7:00 p.m. PT, and you can watch the game on Sportsnet or listen to Brendan Batchelor\u2019s radio call on Sportsnet 650 and the Sportsnet Radio Network.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Vancouver Canucks are in Chicago to face the Blackhawks\u00a0on Friday night\u00a0in the first game of a short,\u00a0two-game…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[49,48,55],"class_list":["post-517237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-vancouver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}