The Edmonton Oilers will wrap up this three-game road trip on Saturday evening when they face the rebuilding Blackhawks at the United Center in Chicago.

1. The Hawks made a handful of additions in the off-season with the goal of taking a step forward in Connor Bedard’s second NHL season. They signed veterans such as Teuvo Teravainen, Tyler Bertuzzi, Alec Martinez, and T.J. Brodie in free agency but the team hasn’t seen anything close to the improvement that they were hoping for.

Chicago has a 14-26-2 record at the middle point of the season, putting them dead last in the league standings with 30 points in 42 games.

2. After getting off to a 8-16-2 start, the Hawks fired head coach Luke Richardson and replaced him with Anders Sorensen, the coach of their American Hockey League affiliate in Rockford.

Chicago has gone 6-10-0 with Sorenson behind the bench thus far. The team put together three consecutive wins shortly after the coaching change, their longest winning streak of the season, but they followed that up with a five-game losing skid.

3. Given they’re in the basement of the league’s standings, it should come as no surprise that the Hawks are bad at both scoring goals and keeping the puck out of their own net. They’re 29th in the league with 107 goals and 28th with 143 against.

One area in which Chicago is actually above-average is on special teams. Their power play has scored on 23.1 percent of its opportunities and they’ve killed off 83.6 percent of opposing power play opportunities.

4. Connor Bedard is leading the team with 11 goals and 38 points through 42 games this season, a somewhat disappointing sophomore showing for the first-overall pick from the 2023 draft. The native of North Vancouver scored 61 points in 68 games last season and was awarded the Calder Trophy for the league’s top rookie.

Though Bedard hasn’t matched the lofty expectations that have been placed on him so far, he hasn’t had much help. Tyler Bertuzzi, Ryan Donato, and Nick Foligno are the only other players on the Hawks who have scored at least 10 goals this season. Teuvo Teravainen and Taylor Hall are two players who were acquired to produce depth offence behind Bedard and they’ve combined for only 17 goals.

5. Chicago’s goaltending tandem of Petr Mrazek and Arvid Soderblom have combined for a .887 save percentage, which is tied with a few other teams in the bottom third of the league. The team signed Laurent Brossoit in the off-season but he hasn’t made his debut with the Hawks yet because of a knee injury. He had surgery in August and had another procedure done in November.

6. This will be the second of three meetings between the Oilers and Hawks this season. Edmonton hosted Chicago back in October and lost by a score of 5-2 despite throwing 38 shots on net. The two teams will play again in Chicago in early February.

The Oilers should win this game handily. The Hawks are arguably the worst team in the league and they’re going to be playing their second game in as many nights, as they were dropped by the Detroit Red Wings on the road on Friday. After a frustrating loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins earlier this week, Edmonton needs a commanding win in Chicago to finish this trip on a positive note.

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