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Against Wild, Hawks are cruising in the comfort zone

Brent Seabrook and Andrew Shaw's footwear - white, cushy, hotel-issued slippers - said it all.

"Yeah. Comfortable," Seabrook said as four very relaxed Blackhawks answered questions about a somewhat surprising 3-0 lead over Minnesota in their second-round series.

When a team is playing as well as the Hawks are, it's not surprising to see players let their guard down off the ice - as Seabrook, Shaw, Johnny Oduya, and Patrick Sharp did Wednesday at their hotel - or the way Jonathan Toews, Teuvo Teravainen and Michal Rozsival all delivered memorable, crack-the-media-up one-liners Monday at O'Hare.

The comfort factor on the ice is increasing because the Hawks - while not perfect - are improving in almost every phase of the game and frustrating the heck out of the Wild in the process.

"When a team is playing like that, there's no easy way to go and score a goal," said Minnesota coach Mike Yeo. "The harder you try, quite often the more frustrating it is and the less opportunity you have."

And even on Minnesota's good opportunities, the puck isn't going in the net. To wit:

• Corey Crawford has stopped 90 of 94 shots in the Hawks' 3 wins and allowed just 1 goal in 150:30. He made spectacular saves in Game 3 on breakaways, one-timers and even on a puck trickling toward the goal line that he momentarily couldn't locate.

• The Hawks blocked 19 shots Tuesday night, a 2015 playoff-high for a game that ended in regulation.

• Minnesota had three power-play opportunities against a Hawks team with an abysmal .703 kill rate in the playoffs, yet the Wild could not cash in.

The Hawks are getting their opponents completely out of their comfort zone and feeling as if they're walking over a bed of nails - and certainly not like they're wearing comfy hotel slippers.

"I think guys are definitely motivated to play this team," Minnesota's Kyle Brodziak said. "I think the past couple years, maybe we came into this series a little more intimidated, facing the Stanley Cup champs. … I think we felt that this year was going to be different, the way we were playing and the confidence level we had."

It's been no different, and actually it's a whole lot worse as Minnesota is staring at a sweep with a loss in Game 4 Thursday night.

"I think it's been a tough series," Seabrook said. "I think Minnesota is a great team. They haven't made it easy. We've had some timely goals and some great goaltending."

The last time the Hawks led 3-0 in a series was the conference finals in 2010 when they swept San Jose. They've also trailed by the same margin and managed to force a seventh game with Vancouver in 2011, so they're not taking anything for granted or even thinking about getting too comfortable despite these two facts:

• Only four NHL teams have ever blown a 3-0 series lead.

• Since 2009, the Hawks are 13-4 when given the chance to end an opponent's season.

"It's three-nothing on our side, but it definitely doesn't feel like that," Sharp said. "Minnesota's a team that's capable of winning a huge stretch of games. They can put the puck in the net.

"There's a lot of talk about how structured they are and how patient they are, but they've got some high-end talent and some speed that can play out there as well, so we're very fortunate to be sitting here three-nothing and we're not going to change much.

"(We'll) play even harder in Game 4 and try to close it out."

• Joel Quenneville said that Kris Versteeg, who was out for five days with a lower-body injury and participated in morning skate before Game 3, is able to practice in full and is "ready to go."

• Follow John's reports on Twitter @johndietzdh

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