Chicago Blackhawks Season Preview: April

The final month of the NHL season comes in April and the Blackhawks won’t even play a full month's worth of games. Their final regular season game of the month comes on the 10th. Hopefully by then, they will be in a position to get into the playoffs and defend their Stanley Cup title.

The Blackhawks will kick off the month of April on April Fools' Day with a visit to the Columbus Blue Jackets. When these two teams met last season (five times) the Blackhawks gained a 3-2 advantage in those games and will need to play just as well or better in this game in order to win and keep pace for a playoff berth.

Following their away game in Columbus, the Blackhawks will return to the United Center to face the Tampa Bay Lightning. In action last season, these two team met one time and the Blackhawks won that lone game. Hopefully they can win this one as well.

Chicago will travel to Montreal after that to take on the Canadiens. The Canadiens and the Blackhawks played one game last season and the Blackhawks won that lone game.  This is the only game that these two teams will play this season.

Following their visit to Montreal, the Blackhawks will host the St. Louis Blues for the final time this coming season. During last season, the Blackhawks and the Blues met up a total of five times and the Blackhawks held a 3-2 advantage in those games. Being that this is the last game that these two teams will play against one another this coming season, it should be a good one.

Their final two games of the year will be played against the Detroit Red Wings. The first game will be played at Detroit and the second game (two days later) will be played in Chicago and will be the last game of the month of April and the last game of the regular season. Last season, these two team met six times and each team won three games a piece.

Look for these last two games to be two of the more intense games of the season for the Blackhawks as hopefully they are either poised to make the playoffs (and need a win or two against Detroit to get into the playoffs) or are already in and just want to tune up a bit against their arch rival.

The following is a look at their entire schedule for the month of April:

April 1st: Chicago at Columbus
April 3rd: Tampa Bay at Chicago
April 5th: Montreal at Chicago
April 6th: St. Louis at Chicago
April 8th: Chicago at Detroit
April 10th: Detroit at Chicago