The Chicago Blackhawks are part of the only NHL game this Friday night.

The Columbus Blue Jackets have been in the news a lot this week. They had an issue with their star player, Pierre-Luc Dubois, not wanting to be there. This is something that has been sort of rare in the NHL over the past few seasons but it got pretty ugly there. He was benched in his final game as a Blue Jacket because he had a completely lazy shift that annoyed the coach.

That ended up being his last shift as a member of the Columbus Blue Jackets because he was traded to the Winnipeg Jets in exchange for Patrik Laine and Jack Roslovic. Laine was the second overall pick in the 2016 NHL Draft and Dubois was the third overall pick in the same draft. The fact that they were traded for one another is very interesting. Each guy wanted a change of scenery and each guy got what they wanted from the same trade.

They have headed to Chicago following their game against the Florida Panthers on Thursday. They will be skating in the second half of a back-to-back where the Hawks will have a day worth of rest in between. Columbus is similar to the Hawks in a lot of ways. Columbus is a hard-working team that gets the most out of what they have. Seth Jones and Zach Werenski are two of the best defenseman in the NHL and they are behind a pretty good group of forwards.

In a lot of ways, they are similar to the Nashville Predators. If the Blackhawks and Detroit Red Wings are looked at as the two bad teams of the division, Columbus is right there with Nashville and Florida as one of the “bubble teams”. The Blackhawks, if they continue to do a good job checking, have a chance to beat the Blue Jackets.

Speed from their stars is a big key to getting behind the defense to create some scoring chances. If they can get their power play going again and continue to kill some penalties (or stay out of the box), that should help them as well. They aren’t deep enough to score a lot of goals at even strength so the power play is very important.

The two lines to look at for Chicago are the fourth line and whatever line Patrick Kane is on. That fourth line was awesome in their most recent game against the Nashville Predators. In the same vein, Kane is the team’s only elite player and should do a good job creating some offensive chances. As the NHL’s only game tonight, all hockey eyes will be on them so it will be cool to see if they can get a win.