The Chicago Blackhawks look to end their four-game losing streak on Friday as they host the Nashville Predators at the United Center.

The Predators limp into the weekend sitting second-to-last in the NHL by points percentage (.391), with only the Calgary Flames keeping them from claiming the league’s basement suite. Their recent form hasn’t helped matters — a 2-6-2 skid over their last 10 has done a lot of the damage — but they at least arrive with something resembling momentum after a 6–3 win over the Detroit Red Wings on Wednesday. It was a rare night for the team in mustard, with a five-goal third period vaulting them to victory. However, that lone win isn’t really going to turn the season around, and the Predators are pretty much already in sell mode:

Predators GM Barry Trotz on @1025TheGame‘s DVD: “Everything’s on the table. I know people out there (are discussing) everything from letting the coach go to moving assets right away … all of that’s really on the table. We’re going to have assess all of those things and make…

— Russell Vannozzi (@RussellV_MSP) November 25, 2025

The Predators don’t have a single point-per-game player on the roster — a pretty tidy summary of why their offense has looked so starved — but they do at least have six forwards contributing at a clip of about 0.6 PPG better. Filip Forsberg is still the steady production engine up front, leading the way in goals (9) and points (17), though Ryan O’Reilly isn’t too far behind with 16 points (7 G, 9 A). Luke Evangelista has emerged as the team’s most reliable setup man with 11 assists, and Michael Bunting and Erik Haula both have 13 points each as well. Matthew Wood rounds out the top-six with 10 points but he’s played in seven fewer games than everyone else in this group.

There’s a big drop after those six: the major acquisitions from last summer — Steven Stamkos (0.30 PPG) and Jonathan Marchessault (0.35) — are still struggling to find any sort of offensive footing in Nashville and the Predators’ bottom half of the lineup is devoid of much value.

On the back end, the Predators have two defensemen contributing well — Roman Josi and Nick Blankenburg, with solid 0.63 and 0.69 points-per-game rates, respectively — but neither has played the full 23 games so far. Josi missed 10 games with an upper-body injury and has only appeared in three since returning, while 27-year-old Blankenburg actually started the season in the AHL after being waived early on. The rest of the Predators’ blue line, which includes players who were decent in the past like Brady Skjei and Nicolas Hague, just hasn’t really clicked this season.

The biggest disappointment for the Predators this season has to be Juuse Saros, who is posting a save percentage of .889. He was marginally worse last year, but there was hope that it was a one-off down season. So far, he hasn’t been able to backstop the team like he has in the past. Maybe the Predators shouldn’t have traded Yaroslav Askarov quite so quickly, eh? Saros is expected to be in net for this game, according to the morning skate:

Preds morning skate lines at Blackhawks:
Stamkos-O’Reilly-Evangelista
Forsberg-Haula-Marchessault
Bunting-McCarron-Wiesblatt
Schaefer-Svechkov-Wood

Hague-Josi
Skjei-Perbix
Stastney-Blankenburg

Saros in starter’s net @1025TheGame

Extra: Wilsby, Jost, Barron

— Max Herz (@MaxHerzTalks) November 28, 2025

The Blackhawks’ season has hit its first real slump, as they roll into the weekend riding their longest losing streak of the year at four games. Even their most recent outing — a 4–3 overtime loss to the Wild on Wednesday — managed to be both encouraging and maddening: Chicago grabbed a 2–0 lead, then a 3–2 lead, and still found a way to let both slip away before settling for a single point. Yes, officiating was an issue again, but the Blackhawks need to rekindle the A-B-C attitude they had earlier in the season. As it stands now, the Blackhawks are sitting two spots outside the playoffs based on points percentage (0.543).

The production has tapered off during this four-game skid: the Blackhawks have scored just eight goals, a two-per-game clip that’s a far cry from the 3.37 rate they posted over the previous 19 contests. Tyler Bertuzzi has been their most productive player in this mini-slump with five points (3 G, 2 A). Connor Bedard is still producing at a point-per-game pace (1 G, 3 A) thanks to a two-point outing against the Wild, but that’s actually a cooled-off stretch by his standards. Sam Rinzel (three assists) and Artyom Levshunov (1 G, 1 A) have chipped in from the back end, but that’s more or less where the contributions dry up.

The fact that Spencer Knight and Arvid Söderblom have combined for just an .841 save percentage over these four losses isn’t helping, although the skaters in front of them haven’t exactly been pulling their weight defensively either.

Whether it’s bad luck or bad play, the Blackhawks have to figure out how to right the ship soon, and in a sustainable way that isn’t them relying heavily on the netminders, if they still want a shot at making the playoffs this season. But the offense could be receiving a boost with the expected return of Andre Burakovsky:

Blackhawks lines:
Greene-Bedard-Burakovsky
Teravainen-Nazar-Bertuzzi
Donato-Dickinson-Mikheyev
Dach-Lafferty-Moore

Vlasic-Crevier
Kaiser-Levshunov
Grzelcyk-Murphy
Rinzel

— Greg Boysen (@gregboysen.bsky.social) November 28, 2025 at 10:40 AM

Tale of the Tape

Blackhawks — Statistic — Predators
46.30% (28th) — 5-on-5 Corsi For — 53.66% (5th)
46.04% (27th) — 5-on-5 Expected goals for — 50.84% (12th)
3.13 (t-10th) — Goals per game — 2.48 (30th)
2.83 (12th) — Goals against per game — 3.65 (11th)
47.2% (27th) — Faceoffs — 52.5% (9th)
22.7% (13th) — Power play — 16.7% (22nd)
83.1% (9th) — Penalty kill — 80.6% (16th)
(All stats from this season)

How to watch

When: 7:30 p.m. CT
Where: United Center, Chicago
TV: CHSN
Webstream: ESPN+
Radio: WGN 720