Blackhawks to face someone new and someone old

CHICAGO – The Chicago Blackhawks will face a two ends of the spectrum this week in the teams that they will challenge at home. They will face the newbies of the league in the former Atlanta Thrashers who have been sold and moved as the second reincarnation of the Winnipeg Jets. Then two days later it will be a battle of the last two Stanley Cup Champions as the Boston Bruins come into town.
The Jets are looking to settle down after a disappointing first game at home as they were routed in a 5-1 loss against the Montreal Canadiens. They are hoping that all the hype and pomp and circumstance surrounding the return of the Jets to Winnipeg is off their shoulders and that the business of hockey will return to the team.  
Formerly tagged as the Blackhawks of the South due to all the deals that sent a handful of the Stanley Cup Championship Chicago team to Atlanta in salary cap moves, the team still has two of those players that are the core of the team. Captain Andrew Ladd and alternate captain Dustin Byfuglien are tasked in leading the hockey renaissance in Manitoba.
On Saturday, the Boston Bruins come into town as the team that dethroned the Blackhawks as defending s Stanley Cup Champions. Boston hasn’t had an impressive start of the season playing the first three games of the season at home, albeit that the teams that they faced are all playoff–caliber.
Banner raising night is always emotional on many fronts. Boston scored the first and their only goal of the game but Philadelphia did one better scoring one better in the period to give the Bruins a 2-1 loss. They did rebound the with a resounding 4-1 victory against the Tampa Bay Lightning as Rich Peverley scored two goals in the game. Not bad for the center who was offered a contract extension a few days later. But in the third game, the Bruins were shut-out 1-0 by the Colorado Avalanche.
As for the Blackhawks, they started the season with a home-at-home series against the Dallas Stars. This bodes well for the team in that out of the three times the team has started the season back-to-back against the same opponent,   the ‘Hawks have gone on to win the Stanley Cup in two of those seasons.
Their first game was not what they expected but they do get points for not giving up. It was a fairly even first period for both teams but the Stars started the scoring a minute into the second and then doubled their score heading into the third. With just fourteen seconds left, defenseman Nick Leddy ripped a shot from the top of the far circle that got into the near top corner of the net and that is where the scoring ended. Dallas netminder Kari Lehtonen was on fire with 37 shots where a good third of those were quality saves.
The next night at home was electric to start, but did that transfer to the play on the ice. Andrew Raycroft was in net for the Stars as Lehtonen was given a break with divisional games upcoming. It so seemed like the ‘Hawks were just a fraction of a second off from winning the last game but they rebounded nicely in game two. Center Dave Bolland returned back into the lineup after recovering from a preseason upper-body injury and did that make a difference.   Bolland scored two if the five goals that the ‘Hawks scored giving goaltender Corey Crawford his first win by the score of 5-2. Contact the author at matt.chin@prohockeynews.com