Getting to know the Blackhawks<\/p>\n
Tyler Bertuzzi – Jason Dickinson – Ilya Mikheyev<\/p>\n
Teuvo Teravainen – Ryan Donato – Andre Burakovsky<\/p>\n
Oliver Moore – Ryan Greene – Colton Dach<\/p>\n
Nick Lardis – Dominic Toninato – Sam Lafferty<\/p>\n
Alex Vlasic \/ Louis Crevier<\/p>\n
Matt Grzelcyk \/ Artyom Levshunov<\/p>\n
Wyatt Kaiser \/ Connor Murphy<\/p>\n
Goalies: Spencer Knight, Arvid Soderblom<\/p>\n
Potential scratches: Ethan Del Mastro<\/p>\n
Injured Reserve: Connor Bedard, Frank Nazar, Nick Foligno<\/p>\n
First-line winger Ilya Mikheyev was scratched from Saturday night\u2019s game to welcome a child with his wife, per The Athletic\u2019s Scott <\/a>Powers. He was replaced for the Stars game by recalled AHL winger Landon Slaggert.Bedard isn\u2019t the only important player currently missing from the Blackhawks roster. Second-line center Frank Nazar is out for a month after taking a puck to the face<\/a> on Nov. 20. Captain Nick Foligno has been out since Nov. 15 with a hand injury.<\/p>\n The Blackhawks were in the Wild Card <\/a>race as of the beginning of November before the bottom fell out without Bedard this December. (Comparisons could be drawn to the Penguins\u2019 1-5-4 record without Evgeni Malkin).<\/p>\n Bedard\u2019s shoulder injury won\u2019t be evaluated until at least early January. Even with more strong performances from Spencer Knight, it\u2019ll be a steep climb back into the playoff picture without him.<\/p>\n The Athletic\u2019s Scott Powers<\/a> wrote Friday about the two paths the Hawks could choose to take in the interim without Bedard or Nazar. The team could lean on veteran NHLers like Andre Burakovsky and Teuvo Teravainen, or they could give ice time to young players in need of development like recent draft picks Oliver Moore, Colton Dach and Ryan Greene.<\/p>\n Projected lines (from Saturday\u2019s practice)<\/p>\n Rickard Rakell – Sidney Crosby – Bryan Rust<\/p>\n Anthony Mantha – Rickard Rakell – Justin Brazeau<\/p>\n Rutger McGroarty – Ben Kindel – Ville Koivunen<\/p>\n Connor Dewar – Blake Lizotte or Kevin Hayes – Noel Acciari<\/p>\n Parker Wotherspoon \/ Erik Karlsson<\/p>\n Brett Kulak \/ Kris Letang<\/p>\n Ryan Shea \/ Jack St. Ivany<\/p>\n Goalies: Stuart Skinner and Arturs Silovs<\/p>\n Potential Scratches: Danton Heinen, Ryan Graves, Connor Clifton, Kevin Hayes<\/p>\n IR: Blake Lizotte (?), Evgeni Malkin, Filip Hallander, Caleb Jones<\/p>\n Kevin Hayes was out of the lineup during Saturday\u2019s practice in favor of Blake Lizotte, who has missed nine games with an upper-body injury.Lizotte\u2019s potential return from IR could be a huge boost for the Pens\u2019 penalty kill, which has gone 18-for-26 (69 percent success rate) over this nine-game stretch. The Penguins already have 23 men on the roster, so they\u2019d have to move someone else out if Lizotte is activated today.Evgeni Malkin was meanwhile skating on his own before the session, according to Jason Mackey. It doesn\u2019t look like he\u2019s about to make an immediate return\u2014 Dan Muse told reporters<\/a> Saturday that Malkin is \u201cstatus quo.\u201dStuart Skinner finally has a full Penguins goalie mask, per Seth Rorabaugh:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Who: Pittsburgh Penguins (15-12-9, 39 points, 7th place Metropolitan Division) @ Chicago Blackhawks (14-17-6, 34 points, 8th place…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1446,73,75,74],"class_list":["post-72088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-general","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Screenshot-2025-12-27-at-3.43.55\u202fPM.png\"\/)
<\/a>Bedard, who has missed the Blackhawks\u2019 last five games, is still ranked ninth in the NHL points race with 44 points (19 goals, 25 assists) in his first 31 games of the season.Arvid Soderblom made 28 saves on 31 shots, then won a shootout, against the Stars on Saturday night. The Penguins could be tasked with taking on Spencer Knight, who despite the Blackhawks\u2019 overall struggles has a .255 goals against average and .914 save percentage through 25 appearances this season.<\/p>\n