What's Black and Blue and Gonna be Bruised All Over? Blackhawks @ Blues Preview

Game Time: 7:00 PM CST TV/Radio: TSN, Versus / WGN (720-AM) The Bad Guys: St. Louis Game Time

Stat Pack:

	Blackhawks (2nd)	Blues (10th)
L10	3-5-2 (ouch)	6-4-0
Record	on the Road: 19-13-4	at Home: 14-18-5
PP%	18.4% (T-14th)	16.9% (T-22nd)
PK	84.5% (T-5th)	86.3% (1st)

Apologies that this is so late--I'd been going about my day absolutely convinced I needed to write a preview for the Wild game tomorrow, for some reason. In any case, here I am and here's the preview. There are only a few things that you need to know about tonight's game, so let me enumerate instead. The Blues--

• are still in the playoff hunt. While losing tonight's game won't necessarily eliminate them from the playoffs, it would put a first-round sweep that much further from their reaches. For the Blackhawks, winning this game would be an act of mercy. Be merciful.
• are even bigger slackers than the Blackhawks. So you know how the Blackhawks have been playing really well for the first half of the season and started playing less inspired hockey afterward, perhaps out of complacency or some excuse or other? The Blues have sort of done the opposite with theirs. They're just beginning to pick up their game again so tonight our slumping Hawks will actually be up against a hot team.
• have the best PK in the league. You know how the Hawks did as well as they did because, in the playoffs, they made teams pay for penalties? This is the opposite of that. Earning the third-highest PIM/G in the league has taught the Blues only how to kill penalties. So expect them to run our guys... and possibly get away with it. Bastards.

The Blackhawks--

• will not be the Blackhawks you knew last Sunday. Looks like Quenneville's brought out his Deterministic Chaos Creator (read: random line generator) and is sending out such strokes of genius like: Toews-Hossa-Sharp, Byfuglien-Versteeg-Kane, Brouwer-Bolland-Ladd, and Madden with whoever's not scratched among Kopecky, Eager, Burish and Fraser. I don't really get it either, but hey, why not, right? Right.
• have a 10.5% PP conversion rate in their last 10 games. Ouch. I knew it was bad, but I didn't think it was this bad. Yep, if there ever was a time the Blues decided they wanted to get away with penalties, it would be now.
• need to get going sooner rather than later. Enough's enough, don't you think? Let's go get them, boys.