April 12--With all Blackhawks forwards practicing for the first time in weeks, there was a player in the four-line rotation that might have caught some fans by surprise.
Winger Brandon Mashinter is in line to play Game 1 on Wednesday against the Blues. He skated on the third line with center Teuvo Teravainen and winger Tomas Fleischmann in Tuesday's practice.
Mashinter is getting the spot over Richard Panik and Dale Weise. Weise was one of the trade-deadline pickups who figured to play a prominent role down the stretch but has not scored in his 15 games with the team.
Panik has three goals in his last seven games, but is likely not to dress.
Mashinter has been a mainstay on the Blackhawks for most of the season. He has four goals in 41 games while averaging 7 minutes, 30 seconds of ice time.
"You've got three guys that probably all deserve to start if you're going to look at one spot," coach Joel Quenneville said. "We like the depth, we like the options, and tough decisions as well. I could foresee changes as we go along here and it's nice dealing when we've got options like that."
Added Fleischmann: "He can skate and has a big body to open up more space for us with Teuvo. That's basically what it is."
Meanwhile, defenseman David Rundblad was back at Hawks practice and drew rave reviews from Quenneville, who sat Rundblad most of the time he was on the roster this season. Rundblad was recalled from Rockford on Monday.
"He looked really good in practice today," Quenneville said. "They've been playing him 25 minutes in the (AHL) and he's come back with a good attitude. I thought he enhanced himself with how he looked and fit in today. You can never have enough defensemen; we saw that last year with how it played out in the end."
Here were the Blackhawks' line combinations with projected defensive pairings with Duncan Keith (suspended) out of the lineup:
Andrew Ladd-Jonathan Toews-Marian Hossa
Artemi Panarin-Artem Anisimov-Patrick Kane
Brandon Mashinter-Teuvo Teravainen-Tomas Fleischmann
Andrew Desjardins-Marcus Kruger-Andrew Shaw
Trevor van Riemsdyk-Niklas Hjalmarsson
Viktor Svedberg-Brent Seabrook
Erik Gustafsson-Michal Rozsival
