Quenneville tweaks first unit, power play

Watch for a slight tweak to the Blackhawks’ struggling power play for Friday’s game against the Hurricanes.

Marian Hossa has bumped Andrew Brunette off the first unit and was practicing at the left point opposite Brent Seabrook on Thursday. Patrick Sharp was off the point on the low left side.

“We’re going to try new things,” Sharp said. “It comes down to putting the puck in the net and capitalizing on your chances. We have players who work hard and draw those penalties and it’s important we go out and cash in to change the outcome of the game.

“We’re happy with the point production of as a team. We’re getting team points every game and with our power play clicking we’ll be that much better.”

The Hawks rank 20th in the NHL on the power play with 4 goals in 30 chances.

“Just changing it up,” coach Joel Quenneville said. “It can be better. When we don’t like the way things are looking or going, when you make a little change or one or two little moves here sometimes that can ignite it. It gives us a little different look.”

Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane remained on the first unit with Sharp, Hossa and Seabrook.

Busy weekend:

Corey Crawford will start in goal in Carolina as the Hawks start a stretch of three games in four nights.

Joel Quenneville hinted that backup Ray Emery would get the start on Saturday against Columbus at the United Center.

Quenneville suggested that some of the recent scratches — Sami Lepisto, Rostislav Olesz and John Scott — might get a shot to play as well in the next three games.

“It’s something we need to address,” Quenneville said. “Everybody wants to play. We’ve got some games here and hopefully some guys will get in here this weekend. We’ll see how that goes. At the same time we don’t change too much when things are going well.”

Eddie Olczyk award:

The Hawks this week announced the creation of the Eddie Olczyk award to support young area hockey players and teams who do not have the means to play at a competitive level.

Families and teams will be issued grants to participate in Illinois-sanctioned organizations. Olczyk said he and the Hawks have been working on this concept for more than two years.

“We’ve had over 800 kids come through our (Blackhawks) youth hockey programs the last four years and we want to take that money and put it right back into the youth hockey community,”Olczyk said. “Maybe there’s a young player that’s really good, but his family can’t afford for him to play travel hockey. Or maybe there’s an organization that hasn’t had new jerseys in 20 years. We want to know about that. We want to hear from everyone. Nothing is too big or too small.”

Olczyk said the Hawks also plan to purchase ice time at local rinks for kids to go and play hockey after school. Those plans will be announced on the team’s website.

The quote:

With 15 penalty minutes, Jamel Mayers is only 3 behind team leader Patrick Sharp, who built a big early cushion thanks to an early 10-minute misconduct.

“I think Jammer is catching me,” Sharp said. “Maybe I’ll take another 10 or drop the gloves or something.”