After seeing a handful of big-name players dress in the opening preseason tilt on Wednesday, the stars came out on Friday night at the United Center. Marc-Andre Fleury, Seth Jones, Jake McCabe and Tyler Johnson all made their unofficial Blackhawks debuts on Friday, while Patrick Kane, Alex DeBrincat and Dylan Strome joined Jonathan Toews among the returning veterans in the lineup.
In the first preseason game for the majority of the roster, it took a little while for things to come together on the ice, but it's part of the process in building towards the regular season.
"It's preseason. You've got to get your team game in order and you've got to get your skating legs under you," said Caleb Jones, one of five Blackhawks skaters who played on Wednesday. "For a lot of guys in the lineup tonight it was their first game, and I think they (St. Louis) have some guys play three or four games. We had a couple good moments once we started to find our legs. They came out flying. It obviously wasn't good enough. We've still got work to do to get ready for the opener, but I think there's a lot of good things we can build off of and watch and learn and I just think we'll continue to get better. "
"We had a bunch of guys playing their first games. They've played a few and the difference in the details was noticeable," Colliton said. "I think we got better at times. We had some spurts where we started doing things we need to do to have success, but it just wasn't enough. We couldn't really sustain it. We battled back in the game a couple times, but ultimately we've got to get over that hump of getting into playing regular season style. Definitely still some things to build on."