Chicago Blackhawks vs. Vancouver Canucks Pick & Prediction DECEMBER 17th 2023

The Chicago Blackhawks head into Sunday’s home clash against the Vancouver Canucks looking to climb out of a deep hole.

The Blackhawks will return home for the matinee matchup after they suffered a 7-1 beating from the Seattle Kraken on Thursday. Chicago capped a two-game trip in which it lost both times, by a combined 11-2 score.

“I feel like we’re a better group than that, and we should be a group that comes ready hungry every day and want to prove to the teams that we’re ready to work,” the Blackhawks’ Taylor Raddysh said. “I feel like we have a lot more to show than that and feel like we didn’t do that.”

Chicago has lost three straight games and has just two victories in its last nine outings (2-6-1) to drop to the bottom of the league standings.

On Saturday, the Blackhawks recalled Wyatt Kaiser from Rockford of the American Hockey League and placed fellow defenseman Seth Jones (shoulder) on the injured reserve list. They already are without rookie Kevin Korchinski (personal), while fellow defenseman Alex Vlasic is a game-time decision.

The Blackhawks also are missing forwards Taylor Hall (ACL), Andreas Athanasiou (groin) and MacKenzie Entwistle (illness).

Those absences add up to a lot of holes in the lineup, but coach Luke Richardson does not want to hear excuses.

“The battle level and compete levels got to be higher, and we got to be smarter,” he said. “The only thing we can do now is learn from it and respond better. I think we’ve been playing better at home, and that’s what we got to look forward to.”

The Canucks saw their four-game winning streak snapped by a 2-1 shootout loss to the Minnesota Wild on Saturday afternoon to open a four-game trip.

The result is a case of some good and some bad for the Canucks. They were far from their best, especially to start in a substandard first period, but found a way to at least force extra time.

“We grinded it out and got the point, you like that, but the execution, we had a tough time handling pucks,” coach Rick Tocchet said. “You’ve got to learn to play these tight games when they’re not going your way.

“An 82-game schedule, you’re gonna have games (like this). I think our guys will have better legs (Sunday). You could tell guys were off.”

The Canucks, who sit second place in the Western Conference, lacked in myriad areas. Their forecheck was not up to snuff, they had far too many shot attempts blocked, and their vaunted power play failed to cash in with five advantages against a Wild team that boasts one of the league’s worst penalty-killing units.

“Not our best, not our sharpest,” Vancouver forward Teddy Blueger said. “The execution wasn’t as good as we have been and we’d like to be, but we stuck with it. Obviously, Casey (DeSmith, who was in goal) held us in there for a bit. Guys were blocking shots, competing, things like that. So we put ourselves in good position to win. Obviously, didn’t get it done in the end.”

–Field Level Media