Ex-Hawk Ladd knows all about Cup hangover

ATLANTA -- The Blackhawks tried convincing themselves all through the preseason that there wouldn't be a so-called Stanley Cup hangover.

It turns out that's exactly what is happening after 15 games with the Hawks at 7-7-1, losers of five of their last seven and playing with a lack of emotion and energy.

Former Hawk Andrew Ladd believes in the Stanley Cup hangover theory, having gone through it in Carolina after the Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup in 2005-06.

The next season Carolina missed the playoffs with 88 points.

Ladd suspects the Hawks are experiencing some sort of Cup hangover.

“You go from such a high of playing Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals to the preseason where you're trying to get motivated to get to that same level and it's not an easy thing to do when you haven't been through it before,” Ladd said Thursday.

“It's a grind, especially for them because everyone kind of marks them on their calendar and says, ‘OK we're playing the Cup champs, we've got to be ready to go,' and everyone is ready to play.

“They don't have any nights off when they can maybe catch a team on an off night.”

Ladd remembers it taking a few months in Carolina to get things straight, but by then it was basically too late.

“In Carolina it kind of took us a couple months to kind of get exactly where we wanted to be, but every team is different,” Ladd said. “They have a much younger team, too.

“I don't know about their play. I just think it's the motivation of trying to get ready and going from such a high. It takes time to get back to that point where you can get pumped for every game and you're not comparing it to the last few games of the Cup Finals.”

Ladd and other ex-Hawks now with the Thrashers are aware of their former team's struggles but said they haven't watched the games closely enough to have more of an opinion about on what's wrong.

“You have to except a little bit when you have to make that big of a change,” Dustin Byfuglien said. “A lot of guys are gone. They have to rebuild and they have to figure out who goes where and who can play with whom.

“It's going to take time. Also, teams are fired up. They want to beat the champs and they have their work cut out for them for the year.”