Throughout the Blackhawks’ preseason, members of the media relentlessly tried to predict Chicago’s opening night lineup. The most likely groupings seemed to emerge at the start of training camp, then the Blackhawks switched things up again and again. Chicago’s lineup finally appeared to be locked up by Sunday.
Before boarding the plane to Utah, the Blackhawks made a surprising last-minute adjustment to their top forward line. Their latest move in a string of many was to move new acquisition Ilya Mikheyev up to the top line alongside Connor Bedard and Teuvo Teravainen, bumping Tyler Bertuzzi to the second line.
Throughout the past month, Mikheyev on the top line wasn’t even a consideration. At first, he was a near-lock to spend time on the third line next to Nick Foligno and Jason Dickinson, as the trio was nearly inseparable. Then, when it became clear that Lukas Reichel didn’t belong in the opening night lineup, he was expected to be a second-line winger. But with a top line of Teravainen, Bedard and Bertuzzi nearly a guarantee, no one could have seen someone spoiling the party.
We’ll find out how he meshes with Teravainen and Bedard Tuesday, but Mikheyev certainly has the skill set to be a top-line winger on this team. Bedard has spoken in the past about how Mikheyev is one of the fastest players in the entire league, a quality the Blackhawks have clearly aimed for in building their prospect pool. He’s great defensively, which is why he was originally expected to be on that third line.
With the move, Chicago is expected to ice a second line of Bertuzzi, Taylor Hall and Philipp Kurashev. That should be another great unit, with more than enough scoring and defensive talent to go around. The bottom six should be the same, with Foligno, Dickinson and Joey Anderson making up the third line and Pat Maroon, Ryan Donato and Craig Smith will be on the fourth.
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