Face-off: 1900 ET, 20/03/2022
Arena: United Center
Chicago suffered a tough loss at Minnesota last night and that could take it out of them when entertaining Winnipeg at United Center.
The Jets haven’t given up hope of sneaking into a wild card spot but can’t afford to let chances like this slip away from here on in.
Let’s go with 2.2 for the visitors to prevail and over 4.5 total goals in our Chicago Blackhawks vs Winnipeg Jets predictions.
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Chicago Blackhawks Odds
Chicago are in fair form, winning four of their last 10 matches and being competitive in almost all of the defeats.
However, that 3-1 reversal versus the Wild looked a tiring affair, with the Blackhawks levelling things up at 8:57 in the third period but then conceding twice late on.
Seth Jones scored and Kevin Lankinen made 31 saves, with coach Derek King stating: “I thought we played well.
“That’s a good hockey team, but ‘Lanks’ was outstanding, he kept us in the game.
“We had our opportunities, we just had a little breakdown on that go-ahead goal. Overall, a pretty solid effort.”
We’re sticking with the theory that backing up after such a hard-fought affair will be tough, though.
Looking at the NHL odds for this game, we like 10.5 for Winnipeg to win 3-2.
Winnipeg Jets Odds
Winnipeg are six points behind Vegas in the race for the second wild card spot in the west, but do have two games in hand of them.
The Jets made it six wins out of nine by beating the Golden Knights 7-3 on Tuesday but suffered a setback when going down 4-2 to Boston on Friday.
Much like Chicago, Dave Lowry’s side battled hard to erase a 2-0 deficit early in the final period, only for the Bruins to net at 15:13 and 19:29.
Adam Lowry and Nikolaj Ehlers scored, while Connor Hellebuyck made 41 saves and Lowry lamented: “It’s disappointing after we battled to bring the game to even.”
Even so, Ehlers has grabbed a goal in each of his past three games and Kyle Connor has posted 11 points in five outings, so the big guns are firing.
Both of these teams have been more productive going forward in the latter stages of matches this term.
The stats certainly suggest that 2.3 for the third period to produce the most goals is worth adding to our NHL predictions.
Additional stats
Last result:
Minnesota 3-1 CHICAGO
WINNIPEG 2-4 Boston
Season head-to-head: Winnipeg 1-3 Chicago, Winnipeg 5-1 Chicago
