A Blackhawks Home Opener Has Never Felt More Important

The Chicago Blackhawks play their home opener on Tuesday against the New York Islanders, never has a home opener been this important.

The Chicago Blackhawks already have a must-win game. While the games right now have little impact on the playoff picture, starting the season 0-2-1 has not been the best thing to see from the Hawks. It is not just the record that has been bad, but the way the team has losing also hasn’t been great.

If someone told me the Hawks would be 0-2-1 entering their home opener I wouldn’t have been too shocked, but if someone said that in each of the first three games they would fall behind early and really look miserable to start the games I wouldn’t have expected that.

The Blackhawks supposedly have a playoff roster, and they really do. Seth Jones, Jonathan Toews, Tyler Johnson, Jake McCabe, Marc-Andre Fleury, all of these different additions were supposed to lead to something better. Stan Bowman did his job, yet the team is still struggling.

For someone like Jeremy Colliton, one would have to imagine this is the most pressure entering a home opener. What is supposed to be a fresh start at home already seems like a pressure-filled moment.

After Tuesday’s game, the Blackhawks will be four games into the regular season. Now four out of 82 is a pretty small sample size, but these first few games haven’t just been losses, they haven’t looked good along the way.

The team is going to have to figure it out quick otherwise we might see a coaching change or something sooner rather than later. Fans are upset with the start, and the team definitely did not enjoy those first few games, even when they were scoring goals against the Avalanche late or pushing a comeback against the New Jersey Devils it was already after falling behind early in the first period and giving up goals quick into the game.

The Hawks look better on paper, but they haven’t shown it on the ice yet. It took Joel Quenneville having a 6-6-3 record in 2018 for the Blackhawks to move on from Coach Q, so it will be interesting to see what happens if Colliton has similar numbers.

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The home opener is on Tuesday against the Islanders, with tickets definitely a lot lower than they were a week ago. Hopefully, a home game will be the start of a good streak for the Blackhawks!