Rozner: Blackhawks maintain favored status in West

It's not like Joel Quenneville hasn't tried.

The Blackhawks coach is like the father who has warned the son repeatedly not to play hockey in the living room and arrives home one day to find not one, but two windows broken - and 18 stitches in the kid's arm.

But I digress.

That minor inconvenience - which may also be an often repressed memory - is meant to make some sort of a point.

It might be that Quenneville doesn't hesitate to peel some paint when he senses his team is not ready to go.

The Hawks have had all sorts of trouble locating their desperation the last two playoff seasons, despite warnings from Quenneville before the Detroit series in 2013 and the Los Angeles series in 2014.

Both visitors had been coming off much more difficult matches against superior opponents and brutal travel schedules, and both times the Hawks won the first game easily and were lulled to sleep.

And both times they fell behind 3 games to 1 before finding their desire to stay alive.

Yeah, desperation.

The Hawks have displayed their incredible ability only when forced to the last couple years and fans are always left to wonder how good they could be if the Hawks played every game like it was an elimination game.

That is the key to how far the Hawks will go in this tournament.

After coming back from down 2-0 to eliminate St. Louis a year ago, captain Jonathan Toews admitted that his team might have forgotten that the process is crucial.

"When you look at last summer and late June and we're celebrating, you almost forget the first round because it was so long ago,'' Toews said in April 2014. "You forget about the steps and how difficult it is to take each step. We have the first step now. We're on to the next one."

It has been a trying year for the Hawks emotionally, and it wouldn't be a shock if they again failed to get into a series until forced to understand the consequences, but they also know they play with fire every time it happens.

What they also know is the West has no team that should be considered the clear favorite as the postseason begins.

Conventional wisdom this decade has been that the road to the Stanley Cup Final goes through Los Angeles and Chicago - with those clubs winning four of five titles - but the defending champs are out and the two-time, Cup-winning Hawks have played one dominant game in the last three months.

The biggest betting favorite in the opening series is Anaheim (-160) against Winnipeg, but the Ducks are inexperienced in goal, young on defense and in for a battle against a big Jets squad that will hit everything in sight.

The Hawks (-150) are the second-biggest favorite and that is strictly a reputation line, hardly earned over the last few months. The Preds match up well in nearly every facet, and if the Hawks don't show up in a hurry, they will find themselves in trouble.

Like Winnipeg, Minnesota is a team nobody wanted in the first round after the way they played following the acquisition of goaltender Devan Dubnyk. It's a confident group. Though St. Louis is favored (-145), the Blues again face goaltending questions and an upset here would not feel like one to most NHL types.

As for the fourth favorite, Vancouver (-140) against Calgary, it is another tossup. The Flames were given up for dead in February after losing Mark Giordano for the season, and all they did was finish 12-6-3 without him and send the Kings home for the summer.

It feels like one of those years in the Western Conference when everyone is looking around to see if anyone can play dominant hockey.

The Hawks have the unmatched pedigree, but they have been lifeless for months.

The Ducks have the regular-season record year after year, but perhaps the worst playoff coach known to man.

The Blues, Jets, Wild and Preds have been incredibly hot at times in the second half, but can any of them put it together when it matters most?

Every team has questions in the wide-open Wild West, an opportunity for a single team to emerge with a chance to win it all by playing six weeks of terrific hockey.

The Hawks are a tepid 3-1 favorite to win the West because of their past, but if they rest on that they will most certainly be an early out.

That's something Joel Quenneville is likely to remind them of in short order.

brozner@dailyherald.com

•Listen to Barry Rozner from 9 a.m. to noon Sundays on the Score's "Hit and Run" show at WSCR 670-AM.