Hawks' Hall placed on injured reserve
The Blackhawks placed forward Taylor Hall on injured reserve Tuesday with a shoulder injury.
The move is retroactive to October. 21, meaning Hall could return Monday when the Hawks are at Arizona.
Luke Richardson isn't sure how long Hall will be out, but the coach did admit it's a big loss.
"He hasn't scored a goal, but he's contributed a lot on goals and (is) playing hard and physical," Richardson said. "I never really thought he played that physical because I'd never seen him play that much live.
"But he's a real good 200-foot player that we miss right now. So the shorter, the better for us."
With Hall out, Richardson had veterans Nick Foligno and Tyler Johnson on the top line with Connor Bedard against the Boston Bruins at the United Center. Philipp Kurashev made his season debut and skated on the third line.
50/50 split?:
Petr Mrazek started in net against Boston, meaning the Hawks have flip-flopped goalies in the first seven games.
Luke Richardson doesn't expect the rotation between Mrazek and Arvid Soderblom to continue forever, but the coach did say he wants both goaltenders playing a lot early on. Soon enough, he may ride the hot hand or take into consideration Mrazek's record against an opponent.
"We're great now," Richardson said. "We just kind of wanted a little bit of load management. It's good to get them both a lot of games and that was the plan at the start and then we were going to see how it played out after that."
Tip-ins:
Through Monday's games, the Hawks ranked 28th on the power play at 7.4% (2-for-27). New Jersey (9-for-21, 42.9%) and Detroit (9-for-23, 39.1%) led the way while St. Louis (0-for-11) and Washington (0-for-13) were the only teams yet to convert. ... The Hawks were last in faceoff win percentage at 37.1 through Monday. That's 8 points worse than 30th-ranked St. Louis. ... The Hawks' high-danger chance percentage during even-strength play of 38.24 was third worst in the league. The Hawks get 8.31 high-danger chances per 60 minutes while yielding 13.42.