Abel to Yzerman

Abel to Yzerman

Previewing Wings/Blackhawks

01/26/2022 at 1:54pm EST

via Kevin Weekes at NHL.com,

Blackhawks
Pluses: Marc-Andre Fleury is having a good season for them after a tough start. Patrick Kane and Alex DeBrincat are leading the way offensively as they have for a while. Seth Jones has been a great addition on defense. Chicago is still making games competitive in their rebuild and playing harder under coach Derek King since he replaced the fired Jeremy Colliton on Nov. 6..

Minuses: They've lost four in a row (0-2-2) following a four-game winning streak and have had trouble scoring, ranking 30th in the NHL (2.29 goals per game) and the penalty kill ranks 26th (75.6 percent). That's not a good recipe for success when you're not scoring goals but allowing them on the penalty kill.

Red Wings
Pluses: Lucas Raymond (33 points) and Moritz Seider (26 points) are each in the Calder Trophy conversation for rookie of the year. Captain Dylan Larkin has scored 37 points (19 goals, 18 assists) in 37 games and Tyler Bertuzzi has scored 36 points (19 goals, 17 assists) in 34 games. Goalies Alex Nedeljkovic and Thomas Greiss have been good and the rebuild is ahead of schedule after they missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs the past five seasons.

Minuses: They rank 24th in goals per game (2.67) and the power play is 29th (14.8 percent). Also, I would like to see more from their support players. It's usually not a good sign when two of your top five scorers are defensemen (Seider, Filip Hronek).

Remember the game tonight is a TNT exclusive.

Below find the game day preview with Ken Kal and Daniella Bruce, scheduled to start streaming at 4pm ET.

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Welcome to Abel to Yzerman, a Red Wing blog since 1977. No other site on the internet has better-researched, fact-laden and better prepared discussions than A2Y. Re-phrase: we do little research, find facts and stats highly overrated and claim little to no preparation. There are 19 readers of A2Y. No more, no less. All of them, except maybe one, are juvenile in nature. Reminding them of that in the comment section will only encourage them to prove that.

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