With a 4-2 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes on April 14, the Chicago Blackhawks officially completed the home portion of their 2023-24 season. With two games left in the regular season, the Blackhawks are 23-52-5. with 51 points, meaning they won’t finish any higher than 31st in the league standings.
At the end of the game against the Hurricanes, I started looking through the Blackhawks’ schedule, finding any winning streaks or memorable games. The lack of road wins stood out (going into the April 16 slate of games, they had seven in 39 games), and there were maybe two or three big wins that you saw the box score and thought, “Oh yeah, that WAS a good game!” But when you divide them between home and away, you realize that the spaces between wins were much smaller at home than on the road.
Let’s look at the Blackhawks’ home record this season and why it should give fans some as they look towards the 2024-25 campaign.
Blackhawks Held Their Own at United Center
The Blackhawks’ final record at home in 2023-24 was 16-21-4, a few percentage points below .500 but still … not … terrible? Like, not among the worst ever? If you multiply that record by two, a 32-42-8 record with 72 points would make them 27th in the league. Still not great, but far better than the bottom of the barrel.
Beyond just the record, if you look through the 41 games, there aren’t many instances where the Blackhawks got smoked. As the season got closer to the end, they had a 5-0 loss to the Los Angeles Kings on March 15, a 4-0 loss to the Minnesota Wild on April 7, and a 5-1 loss to the Nashville Predators on April 12, but beyond that, they never lost a game by more than two or three goals.
Related: Blackhawks Prospect Frank Nazar’s Ongoing Journey to the NHL
Let’s focus on the wins: their 4-3 victory in overtime against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Nov. 24 was one of the best games of the year, with rookie defenseman Kevin Korchinski scoring the game-winning goal in the extra frame.
Another one of my favorite highlights of the season was Seth Jones scoring his first goal of 2023-24 in his 31st game of the season on Jan. 19 in overtime against the New York Islanders. For a player who does so much for a struggling group, it was nice to see the team’s No. 1 defenseman have this moment.
Perhaps the finest highlight at home for me was their last win at United Center this season, when they faced the
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