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Blackhawks take on Wild in season opener

Oct 4, 2007 - 3:19 PM Chicago at Minnesota 8:30 pm EDT

ST. PAUL, Minnesota (Ticker) -- The Chicago Blackhawks will be looking to snap a seven-game winless streak against the Minnesota Wild as the teams both open the season on Thursday night.

After losing the final three meetings of the 2005-2006 season, Chicago dropped all four games against the Wild last year, including three in overtime or shootout.

Martin Havlat led the Blackhawks with 25 goals and 32 assists but Chicago ranked just 29th in offense. Therefore, the club went out and acquired centers Yanic Perreault and Robert Lang along with right wing Patrick Kane, who was the first overall pick of the 2007 NHL draft, to help out goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin.

The 34-year-old veteran netminder is entering his third season with the Blackhawks and is coming off a 25-26-5 campaign. Khabibulin had a 2.86 goals-against average last year, which was almost a one-half goal improvement from the previous season.

Minnesota is led by goaltender Niklas Backstrom, who had a 23-8-6 record last season to go along with a league-leading 1.97 GAA.

The Wild also had five players register at least 20 goals a year ago. Brian Rolston and Marian Gaborik scored 31 and 30, respectively, and Pavol Demitra led the team with 39 assists. Minnesota led the league by allowing only 191 goals as it won a franchise-best 48 games and had 104 points last season.