In general, the Blackhawks’ injury luck has been much better this season than last season.
But after a stretch of very fortunate health the past few weeks, they’ve added a few guys back to the injury list during the past few days.
Young forward Colton Dach suffered a hyper-extended left elbow Thursday, and then veteran forward Jason Dickinson and veteran defenseman Alec Martinez both suffered undisclosed injuries Saturday.
All three players sat out the Hawks’ 7-4 win Sunday against the Flyers. Interim coach Anders Sorensen has described Dach as day-to-day, suggesting he could return soon, but he hasn’t provided any info on Dickinson or Martinez yet.
Last season, the Hawks accumulated 362 man-games lost, per NHL Injury Viz, which was the second-most in the NHL — behind only the Golden Knights. The injury wave they experienced in January 2024 was especially absurd.
This season, the Hawks entered Sunday having accumulated 178 man-games lost, the 13th-most in the league. But looking at skaters specifically — since goalie Laurent Brossoit missing the entire season with knee problems accounts for a big chunk of that number — the Hawks have actually been a healthier-than-average team.
Full house
The Hawks logged their third sellout of the season at the United Center on Sunday, announcing a crowd of 20,125.
The team has scaled back the number of “Best Day Ever” theme games this season, during which the noisy kid-oriented programming tends to be very annoying to adults. But this one was a clear success from a ticket-sales standpoint.
The standing-room-only crowd bucked the overall current trend, though, as fans tire of the losses and shift their attention to basketball and baseball. The Hawks have sold fewer than 17,000 tickets just four times this season, but two of those instances have occurred this month, coincidentally both against the Kings — including 16,981 this past Thursday.
Florida man
Former Hawks defenseman Seth Jones has not yet experienced the Florida rejuvenation he probably expected.
In Jones’ first nine games for the Panthers (entering Sunday, they had been cumulatively outscored 7-2 with a 44.3% scoring-chance ratio (second-worst among Panthers defensemen) during his five-on-five ice time. He had three points in those nine games, having just scored his first Panthers goal Saturday.
He initially slid onto their second pairing after the trade, but Aaron Ekblad’s 20-game suspension for performance-enhancing drugs has bumped him up to their first pairing with Gustav Forsling, and that duo has not found much chemistry.
The Panthers are still safely in playoff position, and Jones’ postseason performance will matter far more than his regular-season acclimation. But considering the Panthers inherited the five-plus years remaining on Jones’ contract, there must be a little concern already that Jones’ move to a better environment might not fix his weaknesses as much as hoped.
Boston transplants
The Bruins jumped into a rebuild this spring by trading Brad Marchand and others at the deadline. That, combined with Charlie McAvoy’s infection, has left the Bruins with an uncharacteristically bare-bones lineup — which the Hawks will see firsthand April 10 in Boston.
In fact, three former Hawks defensemen currently comprise half of the Bruins’ six-man defensive corps. Nikita Zadorov and Henri Jokijarju are their top pairing. Ian Mitchell, the highly touted prospect who struggled mightily in three partial NHL seasons with the Hawks, is on their third pairing.
That doesn’t sound like a good recipe for success, but the Bruins have no other options at the moment.
