Sunday, December 27, 2009

Two In, Two Out for Chicago

The return of a few players back to the Blackhawks line-up meant that there had to be some scratches to the last line-up and it appeared to be both Kris Versteeg and Niklas Hjalmarsson on Saturday night against the Predators. The return of Ben Eager and Cam Barker to the line-up was the prompt for this move, but Blackhawks coach, Joel Quenneville suggested that both Versteeg and Hjalmarsson were 'under the weather.'

Versteeg is the most interesting case, especially with some reduced ice-time in the past couple games and only having a goal and two assists in the past five games, with a -1 rating. Versteeg only saw 10 minutes on Tuesday against San Jose and 12 against the Red Wings. Let the speculation run rampant.

ImplicationsVersteeg is a Draft pick of Trevor's this year, ranking in the middle of the road of a hard-luck group of forwards this year, which ranks 16th in the pool for points. This is not the kind of luck that Trevor was looking for this season and he certainly didn't need it to compound with this bit of bad news.

Versteeg's 20 points this year ranks him in the middle of Box 4 this season, where he was taken three times. This could be a good time for a change, unless you want to see how this whole scratch business plays out.

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