Blackhawks defenseman Brent Seabrook scratched for just the second time in his NHL career.

Say what you will about Chicago Blackhawks head coach Jeremy Colliton, he certainly is not afraid of making controversial moves in an effort to find a path to victory. 

According to a report from the Chicago Blackhawks own Carter Baum it now appears as though veteran defenseman Brent Seabrook will be made a healthy scratch tonight when the Blackhawks welcome the Los Angeles Kings to the United Center. Although there are certainly a number of good reasons to make Seabrook a scratch at this stage of his career, it is nonetheless rare to see a coach put such a high profile player in the press box. Lending credence to that is the fact that Seabrook himself had only been scratched one time prior to this evening throughout his entire career in the National Hockey League and no doubt this decision will sting all that much more as a result.

The Blackhawks will not be wasting this opportunity either as stepping into the lineup to replace Seabrook this evening will be 22 year old Blackhawks rookie defenseman Dennis Gilbert. This will represent just the 3rd game thay Gilbert will play at the NHL level in his young career and by the sound of things it now sounds like Colliton wants to get a good luck at his young blue line prospect moving forward. 

It is worth noting here that Colliton has been pretty diplomatic about his decision to bench Seabrook here, the Blackhawks bench boss went out of his way today to inform the media that he was doing this in an effort to give Seabrook some extra rest rather than having him play both games of a back to back. That being said though Seabrook has played in countless back to back games for the Blackhawks throughout his career and it has never been an issue prior to this evening, again something that suggests that Seabrook's decline in performance is the true motivating factor at play here for colliton and the Blackhawks. 

This move surprisingly comes off the heels of a similar healthy scratch from the Ottawa Senators who placed star forward Bobby Ryan in the Prss box today, although Ottawa's head coach DJ Smith was far less diplomatic regarding his decision.