Blackhawks shuffle aces on defense before hosting Predators (Oct 27, 2017)
CHICAGO -- A mini-slump has prompted the Chicago Blackhawks to shuffle their defensive pairings heading into their contest against the Nashville Predators on Friday night.
Veteran blue-liners Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook will be split up and assigned new defensive partners as Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville looks for a spark for his team. Chicago (5-3-2) has one win in its past four games (1-2-1).
Keith is scheduled to skate with rookie Jan Rutta. Seabrook will move to the second pairing alongside Gustav Forsling.
"We want to see how it looks," Quenneville told the Chicago Tribune. "We've seen this look for a while. Maybe the pairs will give us more ... balance or predictability. We need to improve there as well."
A hard-nosed division rivalry game awaits as Nashville (4-3-2) looks to break a two-game winless streak (0-1-1). The Predators knocked the Blackhawks out of the playoffs last season, which prompted significant personnel changes in Chicago.
The Blackhawks earned a small measure of revenge with a 2-1 overtime victory in the teams' first meeting of the season Oct. 14. Chicago's Patrick Sharp and Nashville's Filip Forsberg each scored during regulation time, and Brandon Saad netted the overtime winner for the Blackhawks on a tic-tac-toe passing play from Keith to Patrick Kane to Saad.
Both teams should be well-rested after a two-day break between games.
The Blackhawks have outscored opponents 34-26 this season. Meanwhile, Nashville has been outscored 23-24.
Predators forward Austin Watson said he and his teammates needed to produce more high-quality scoring chances.
"We need to bear down when we do get chances, but I think we have to do a better job of just getting our O-zone play going and spending more time in the offensive zone," Watson told the team's official website. "We've been playing pretty well defensively, and 'Peks' is always solid back there, but we need to generate more offense."
"Peks" is veteran goaltender Pekka Rinne, who is off to a strong start with a 4-1-2 record, a 1.99 goals-against average and a .933 save percentage. In 39 career games against the Blackhawks, he is 17-16-5 with a 2.49 GAA and a .918 save percentage.
The Blackhawks will counter with Corey Crawford in net. Crawford is 5-3-0 with a 2.13 GAA and .937 save percentage this season. He is 16-9-1 with a 2.45 GAA and a .916 save percentage in 26 career games against Nashville.
Kane leads all Blackhawks scorers with 12 points (five goals, seven assists) in 10 games. He is followed on the scoring sheet by Saad (six goals, three assists), Ryan Hartman (three goals, six assists) and Richard Panik (five goals, three assists).
Nashville is led in scoring by Forsberg, who has 12 points (seven goals, five assists). The next top scorers on the Predators include P.K. Subban (one goal, seven assists), Ryan Johansen (six assists), Scott Hartnell (three goals, two assists) and Viktor Arvidsson (three goals, two assists).
Chicago is 3-1-1 on home ice this season; Nashville is 1-3-1 on the road.
