The holiday season is officially upon us as the calendar flips to December and the Hawks are taking a trip out west for the next week, kicking off a stretch of four road games in six days on Tuesday night when they face the Vegas Golden Knights.
VGK enters this game sitting third in Pacific Division with 30 points (11-6-8) from 25 games, well within striking distance of Anaheim (16-9-1). The trends have been more down than up in VGK of late, with the team crashing back to Earth after going without a regulation defeat in its first seven games (5-0-2). There were a pair of four-game losing streaks in November from this team, the latter of which ended in Vegas’ most recent game: a 4-3 win over the San Jose Sharks on Saturday night. This is VGK’s final game before it heads east for the next five games.
The biggest news for VGK at the moment is in net, where Carter Hart is expected to make his season debut after his suspension ended on Monday, a suspension that came from Hart being one of the five players from Canada’s 2018 World Juniors team named in a sexual assault case that ended in July with a not guilty verdict. We’re not going to rehash what that does and does not mean here, although we will point you in the direction of this article from SinBin.vegas, which did a thorough dive into aspects of the case itself and several paths beyond it now that Hart is returning to the NHL in a VGK sweater. Hart last appeared in an NHL game with the Flyers on Jan. 20, 2024.
As for the skaters in front of the VGK net, offseason signing Mitch Marner appears to be enjoying his time away from the impending disaster in Toronto, as he is averaging a point per game (5 G, 20 A) this season, second to No. 1 center Jack Eichel, who is tied for the team lead with 11 goals and is by himself in the lead for assists (21) and points (32). Marner and Eichel have only skated together for 99:13 this season, with those two more often split between the first and second lines in VGK, helping its entire top six be consistently productive this season. Other offensive weapons to watch include Tomas Hertl (20 points in 25 games), Ivan Barbashev (also 20 in 25) and Pavel Dorofeyv (17 in 25). Mark Stone missed a month of hockey already this season but does have 16 points in nine games when he skates, so his production is worth an eye or two as well. Old friend Brandon Saad is here, too — just don’t look up his age if you remember the fresh-faced 19-year-old who debuted in Chicago last decade. That forward depth has helped alleviate the absence of William Karlsson, who’s back on injured reserve after skating in just 53 games last season.
The Vegas blue line has its familiar fixtures in Shea Theodore and Noah Hanifin as the ice time leaders, followed by Brayden McNabb and Zach Whitecloud for a decent top four overall, although it’s largely been pairings of McNabb-Theodore and Hanifin-Whitecloud this season. Theodore remains the star of the group, of course and remained in his usual spot on VGK’s top pairing at Monday’s practice:
Golden Knights lines and pairings at practice this AM:
Barbashev—Eichel—Bowman
Marner—Howden—Stone
Smith—Hertl—Dorofeyev
Reinhardt—Sissons—Kolesar
McNabb—Theodore
Hanifin—Whitecloud
Hutton—Korczak
— Hannah Kirkell (@h_kirk6) December 1, 2025
As for the Hawks, they had some goalie news as well, as 2024 offseason signing Laurent Brossoit was sent to Rockford for a conditioning assignment, which makes for an awfully crowded goalie room there. Brossoit hasn’t appeared in an NHL game since signing with the Hawks about 17 months ago, although he appears closer than ever given this news. How that’ll affect Chicago’s goalie plans going forward will be something to monitor. For this game, though, Chicago’s starter is the expected one:
Looks like it’ll be Spencer Knight against Carter Hart tonight in Las Vegas.
— Mark Lazerus (@marklazerus.bsky.social) December 2, 2025 at 1:37 PM
The forward lines appear set for a small shake-up based on the morning skate, with Oliver Moore joining Frank Nazar and Tyler Bertuzzi on the second line while Teuvo slides down to a veteran-heavy third line:
Blackhawks lines in morning skate in Vegas:
Greene-Bedard-Burakovsky
Bertuzzi-Nazar-Moore
Teravainen-Dickinson-Mikheyev
Dach-Donato-Slaggert
Vlasic-Crevier
Kaiser-Levshunov
Grzelcyk-Murphy
Rinzel
Knight
— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) December 2, 2025
Coach Jeff Blashill hasn’t done much in the way of line juggling this season, although this move comes as offensive production has been hard to find outside of the power play and any line that has Connor Bedard on it, so it’s certainly worth a shot.
Would be a real shame if the Blackhawks decided to spoil Hart’s first NHL game in almost two years by sending him to the showers early, wouldn’t it?
Let’s go Hawks.
Tale of the Tape
Blackhawks — Statistic — Golden Knights
46.43% (26th) — 5-on-5 Corsi For — 51.81% (10th)
45.90% (27th) — 5-on-5 Expected goals for — 52.98% (8th)
3.2 (9th) — Goals per game —3.04 (t-14th)
2.88 (t-12th) — Goals against per game — 2.96 (t-14th)
46.7% (28th) — Faceoffs — 54.4% (3rd)
24.3% (6th) — Power play — 24.1% (8th)
84.1% (5th) — Penalty kill — 79.7% (t-19th)
(All stats from this season)
How to watch
When: 9 p.m. CT
Where: T-Mobile Arena, Las Vegas
TV: N/A (This game is exclusively on ESPN+)
Webstream: ESPN+/Hulu
Radio: WGN 720
