Nobody has gotten more preseason love than the Chicago Blackhawks. Armed with bevy of young talent including several high draft picks, last years Blackhawks managed a breakout season of 40 wins and 88 points to fall just three points short of the final playoff spot in the West. Chicago was finally talking Blackhawks for the first time in 20 years.

 

Not content to stand pat, the Hawks w ent out and landed the top defenseman available in free agency plus a top flight goaltender. Chicago nabbed Brian Campbell for a cool $57 million, the richest deal in team history. They also landed Cristobal Huet who was 32-14-6 with Montreal and Washington.

 

The acquisition of Huet made veteran Nikolai Khabibulin (23-20-6) expendable buy also created a problem for the salary cap stretched Blackhawks. Chicago released the Russian who was not picked up leaving the Hawks on the hook for his entire $6 million. Habi is back in camp but expect some type of deal early on.

 

You can’t say enough about Chicago’s gold dust twins, Patrick Kane (21-51, 72) and Jonathan Toews (24-30, 54).  Kane, the #1 overall pick last year went on to win the Calder Trophy in his first year while Toews put the biscuit in20the basket 24 times despite missing 18 games to injury.

 

The Blackhawks are loaded with good young talent but there in lies the problem. Chicago is not very deep and just a couple of key injuries and sophomore slumps away from a long year. The potential is enormous but again, the key word here is potential.

 

IMO, Las Vegas has made this 94.5 total a bit ambitious for a team that may be a year or two away and locked in a very deep and talented Western Conference. Play the under.