SUNRISE, Fla. — The Chicago Blackhawks returned to practice on Saturday in Florida after an off-day on Friday, but they were missing a few players due to injuries.
Taylor Hall, who left Thursday's game in Tampa Bay late in the third period with a lower-body injury, did not practice with the team and has been ruled out for Sunday’s game vs. Florida. But it doesn’t look like he’s expected to miss significant time. That's encouraging, given how it looked in real time.
Andreas Athanasiou also will not play on Sunday. He left the game after the second period on Thursday and did not return.
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Before practice on Saturday, the Blackhawks placed Jarred Tinordi on injured reserve with an oblique injury. It’s retroactive to Nov. 9, which means he’ll miss at least seven days. He left after the first period on Thursday and the Blackhawks were forced to play with five defensemen the rest of the way.
“Those guys won’t play tomorrow, but at least we have this long week to kind of see how they do,” Blackhawks head coach Luke Richardson said on Saturday. “We’re just going to hope that we can get some more information when we get back home.”
Richardson said Tinordi's injury was "more clear-cut," which is why he was placed on IR. Athanasiou and Hall did not have injury designations because they "might be OK a little bit sooner so we might not have to use that route. We have this week, which is good, we don’t have to make those decisions now so we’ll see when we get home.”
Reese Johnson and Boris Katchouk are expected to draw into the lineup up front with Athanasiou and Hall out. Johnson and Katchouk skated together on the fourth line with MacKenzie Entwistle during Saturday’s practice.
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Jason Dickinson moved into Athanasiou’s spot as the second-line center, and Ryan Donato was promoted to third-line center with Tyler Johnson and Corey Perry to fill the Hall void.
Nikita Zaitsev skated on the third pairing with Wyatt Kaiser, but the Blackhawks recalled defenseman Isaak Phillips from the AHL’s Rockford IceHogs and I imagine he’ll play on Sunday. Phillips was traveling to Florida on Saturday and did not practice with the team.