If you’re wondering, yes, the Blackhawks always do keep an eye on the standings, even in the early weeks of the long season. And a quick look around the Central Division — universally hailed as the NHL’s toughest — and that stumbling start by the Hawks suddenly doesn’t look all that bad.
The Nashville Predators, the trendy pick to come out of the Western Conference, are jockeying with the injury-ravaged Dallas Stars, the reigning division champs, for last place. Minnesota and St. Louis rode red-hot starts to the top of the division, but are likely to regress to the mean. Colorado and Winnipeg are fair to middling, as usual.
And then there are the Hawks — with all those rookies on the roster, with all those terrible first periods, with all those power-play goals surrendered — suddenly tied for first place.
And starting to round into form, no less.
“Even though we’re not playing our best, we’re finding ways to win games,” said Patrick Kane, who had a goal and two assists in the Hawks’ 5-1 victory over Calgary on Tuesday night. “We can be better in our team game, but [to be] in first place and not playing the way we want, we’ll probably take that. But we think there’s another level in here.”
The Hawks are now 4-0-1 in their last five games, and their timing couldn’t be better. After a loose schedule in October, the Hawks are just starting out one of the tougher stretches of the season. Tuesday’s game was part of six games in 10 nights, after after Thursday’s game against Colorado, the Hawks will play nine of their next 12 on the road, including the seven-game Circus Trip.
“We’ve got some home-ice advantages here that we want to take advantage of, knowing that we’ve got a real tough road schedule at the end of the month,” Joel Quenneville said before the game. “We know the standings are tight and everybody’s kind of bunched up in the same type off place, so hopefully we can put ourselves in a better spot here.”
The Hawks are by no means flawless, and they’re hardly content — and Kane cautioned against getting “satisfied” by winning ugly so often. After Sunday’s thorough 3-0 victory over the Los Angeles Kings, the Hawks actually took a bit of a step back against Calgary, a game Kane called “as ugly as a 5-1 win is going to get.” Though Kane’s dangling, dancing 1-on-3 goal with 1:02 left in the first period gave them a 1-0 lead at intermission, the Hawks were outshot 13-6 in the first, the eight time in 10 games that’s happened.
The Hawks continued to chase the puck in the second period, and the Flames tied it 1-1 on a shorthanded goal by former Hawks penalty-killer Michael Frolik. But Artem Anisimov extended his point streak to eight games with a power-play goal at 7:44 of the third, redirecting a perfect Kane centering feed past Brian Elliott to make it 2-1. And Tyler Motte got an insurance goal five minutes later on a spectacular individual effort, charging past and around T.J. Brodie before kicking the puck to his own stick and tucking it in past Elliott. Artemi Panarin (empty net) and Niklas Hjalmarsson added goals late.
“There are some positive signs in there,” Quenneville said. “Still think we need to keep getting better.”
Just as encouraging as the win itself, the Hawks killed off all four Flames power plays (allowing just five shots on goal), making it nine straight successful kills for what had been a historically bad start for the penalty kill. Granted, the Flames have an abysmal power play, but they did score two of their four power-play goals this season at the United Center one week earlier. Progress is progress.
Perhaps because of all the penalties, and perhaps because of the distraction of the World Series, it was a low-energy night at the United Center. In fact, one of the loudest and most sustained ovations of the game came during a simple faceoff at the tail end of a Flames power play. That’s when Addison Russell hit his third-inning grand slam in Cleveland.
“I’d be lying if I said we weren’t paying attention,” Kane said during CSN’s intermission interview.
Added Quenneville: “It’s going to be a fun day for Chicago tomorrow. Maybe the biggest game in the history of Chicago sports. It’ll be fun to watch.”
Email: mlazerus@suntimes.com
Twitter: @marklazerus
