Chicago Blackhawks' offense power-packed

In the seven-plus seasons Joel Quenneville has coached the Chicago Blackhawks, his teams have rarely excelled in the power-play department.

And while any coach would love a strong power play, Quenneville's teams - and especially the three that won Stanley Cup titles in 2010, '13 and '15 - always have been about defense.

This season, however, it's a different story as the Hawks are tearing it up with the man advantage, registering goals on 22.2 percent of their chances, good for fifth in the league. Take out the first seven games and the Hawks are at an even more impressive 25.4-percent clip.

Only during the 2010-11 season, when the Hawks ranked fourth in the NHL at 23.1 percent, have they had better than a 20 percent success rate during the Quenneville era.

"There's definitely a focus on it this year," Patrick Kane said Friday after the Hawks defeated Winnipeg 2-0 on the strength of 2 power-play goals. "We want to make sure we're doing the right things on the power play to try and create chances and score goals and not lose the momentum."

Kane is obviously one of the biggest reasons behind the unit's success. Ten of his 19 goals on the season have come with the man advantage, and he's just 3 short of his career high set in 2008-09.

It's not just Kane, though.

Both units are chock full of some of the most dangerous players in the league.

Kane, Jonathan Toews, Marian Hossa, Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook have been staples on the power play for years. But now the Hawks can throw another wave of players at you who are gaining confidence by the day.

• Artem Anisimov and Andrew Shaw provide the net-front presence that's so important to disrupt the goaltender and keep pucks alive.

• Artemi Panarin has found Kane on numerous occasions and completely flummoxed opponents' penalty-kill units with slick moves and crisp passing.

• Teuvo Teravainen continues to gain confidence in this area, and he pulled off the feed of the night Friday when he zipped the puck to Kane while looking back to the point. Kane buried the shot and gave the Hawks a 2-0 lead.

"It's nice to have two units contributing," Toews said. "I think we can still improve on getting pucks back after shots or scoring chances. And the more we do that, the better our breakouts and our entries are.

"We're going to keep scoring, and I think we believe we'll continue to have that success."

Quenneville certainly loves what he has seen so far.

"We have a lot of different looks, different options," he said. "The threat for a point shot from the middle opens a lot of things up, then you have playmaking down around the net.

"But (most important, it's) net-front presence on both power plays, shot mentality first and improvising off that. It helps when you're thinking shot first instead of the perfect play."

If there's one thing Hawks opponents can learn from the season's first 30 games it's that they absolutely must avoid taking penalties. Easier said than done, of course, as only five teams have more power-play chances than the Blackhawks' 99.

But when the Hawks get fewer than three power-play tries, Quenneville's team is just 3-4-1. His team also is 10-5-4 when it scores a power-play goal, 6-5 when it does not.

Playing the Hawks at even strength as much as possible is a must because their 5-on-5 game has suffered much of the season. Even over the last two-plus games - a span of more than 139 minutes - only Kane has a goal at even strength, and that came in a 5-1 loss Thursday at Nashville. They also went through a 260-minute dry spell at even strength in late October.

A whopping 27 percent of the Hawks' goals have come on the power play. Only four other teams - New Jersey (31 percent), Buffalo (30), Nashville (28) and Vancouver (27) - can say the same thing.

So while the power play has been huge for the Hawks, they know they can't rely on it too much.

There are signs that other lines will begin picking up the 5-on-5 slack soon, though. Marcus Kruger's had many good chances the last two weeks, Shaw has played like a man possessed of late, and Toews, Hossa and Teravainen clearly are getting more and more comfortable with one another on the top line.

"That offense is going to keep coming," Toews said. "We've just got to keep working together and stay with it. The three of us know what we're capable of; we'll get over that hump eventually."

A powerful statement, one that if proven true will make this Blackhawks team that much more of powerful come playoff time.