Fresh off an exciting win in Carolina on Thursday night, the Blackhawks return to the United Center for a second game in as many nights against a top team from the Eastern Conference. This time, it’s the Tampa Bay Lightning.

The Lightning have spent the past few months reminding everyone that writing them off too early is usually a bad idea. After a slow start and dealing with a pile of early-season injuries, Tampa Bay has surged into second place in a wildly packed Atlantic Division (.688 points percentage) and suddenly looks very much like a team nobody wants to see on the schedule. They’ve been on an absolute heater lately, winning 11 straight between December and January as part of a 13-0-1 stretch. That’s correct: Tampa hasn’t lost in regulation in 14 games, dating back over a month to Dec. 18. There was a 3-2 shootout loss to the Blues last Friday night but the Lightning responded with consecutive 4-1 wins over Dallas on Sunday and San Jose on Tuesday, so the Lightning are also a well-rested team going into this game. Under the hood, the numbers back it up: the Lightning are one of the league’s strongest statistical teams, ranking fourth in shot attempt share (53.44 percent) and third in expected goals share (55.21 percent). Basically it’s a familiar recipe built on relentless puck possession, strong offensive efforts, and wave after wave of defensive forechecking pressure.

Despite the top-end results, the Lightning’s forwards aren’t all all high-octane: the roster is broken up cleanly into a top six that drives most of the offense and a bottom half that does a ton of the thankless, defensive heavy lifting. Tampa Bay has three players scoring at a point-per-game pace or better, led by Nikita Kucherov (73 points in 44 games, 1.66 points per game), with Brandon Hagel (46 in 43, 1.07) and Jake Guentzel (51 in 48, 1.06) not far behind. Brayden Point (30 in 37, 0.81) is hovering just below that threshold, while Anthony Cirelli (30 in 44, 0.68) rounds out the top six as another legitimate offensive threat. After that, the scoring drops off, but the impact doesn’t. Players like Yanni Gourde (18 in 48, 0.38), Oliver Bjorkstrand (23 in 38, 0.48), and Nick Paul (11 in 29, 0.38) aren’t lighting up the scoresheet, but they excel at suppressing shots, disrupting opponents, and generally making life miserable for top lines.

It’s the kind of forward group balance that explains why Tampa Bay can roll four lines without losing its identity, and why they lead the league with 10 players selected for the upcoming Winter Olympics. And that depth has continued to be tested with another rash of injuries, too. Cirelli missed a month of games and left Tuesday’s game early with an injury but he’s expected to play in this game. Top defenseman Victor Hedman has played only 18 games and isn’t expected back from his latest injury until February. Brayden Point was placed on IR last Friday, joining Ryan McDonagh, who’s been there since Christmas.

Behind all of that is one of the best goalies in the league in Andrei Vasilevskiy, who’s silenced any lingering doubts from a subpar 2023-24 season with another stellar campaign, boasting a 21-7-3 record, .916 save percentage and 2.18 goals-against average. He’s the expected starter for this game, with the rest of Tampa’s lineup below from Tuesday’s game:

Tonight’s #GoBolts lines in warmups:

Hagel-Cirelli-Kucherov
Guentzel-James-Goncalves
Girgensons-Gourde-Holmberg
Bjorkstrand-Finley-Paul

Moser-Raddysh
D’Astous-Cernak
Carlile-Crozier

Vasilevskiy starts pic.twitter.com/qdDFRNnAMb

— Benjamin Pierce (@BenjaminJReport) January 20, 2026

It’ll be a tough task for the Hawks, who battled well in Carolina on Thursday night to come away with a victory in the shootout. With this being the second game of a back-to-back, there was no morning skate for a lineup report. However, a goalie change is anticipated, so Arvid Soderblom seems to be the likely starter. The only other possible change could see Jason Dickinson return after missing Thursday’s game with an illness.

Jason Dickinson is not on the ice for warmups. Here are the Blackhawks lines:

Greene-Bedard-Burakovsky
Mikheyev-Nazar-Bertuzzi
Donato-Moore-Lardis
Slaggert-Foligno-Dach

Vlasic-Crevier
Kaiser-Levshunov
Grzelcyk-Murphy

Knight
Söderblom

— Mark Lazerus (@marklazerus.bsky.social) January 22, 2026 at 5:38 PM

Tale of the Tape

Blackhawks — Statistic — Lightning
47.19% (27th) — 5-on-5 Corsi For — 53.44% (4th)
44.76% (30th) — 5-on-5 Expected goals for — 55.21% (3rd)
2.72 (26th) — Goals per game — 3.50 (2nd)
3.08 (17th) — Goals against per game — 2.48 (2nd)
47.1% (28th) — Faceoffs — 46.2% (31st)
21.4% (13th) — Power play — 20.7% (14th)
85.1% (1st) — Penalty kill — 84.2% (3rd)
(All stats from this season)

How to watch

When: 6 p.m. CT
Where: United Center, Chicago
TV: ESPN
Webstream: ESPN+
Radio: WGN 720