Saad could start St. Louis game on fourth line

Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville demoted Brandon Saad to the fourth line at practice Friday and put 21-year-old rookie Alexandre Fortin with Patrick Kane and Nick Schmaltz.

Saad, who has 1 assist and just 5 shots on goal in four games, did his best to put a positive spin on things.

"You see a lot of teams that win, (they) have balance throughout (their) lineups," said Saad, who will skate with Marcus Kruger and David Kampf when the Hawks host St. Louis Saturday. "So regardless of where you're at, you can't change your attitude or mindset."

Saad had two golden opportunities to score in a heartbreaking 4-3 overtime loss at Minnesota Thursday.

The first came midway through the third period when he flicked his stick at the puck in the goal mouth, only to watch it trickle just wide of the right post. About a minute later, Saad could have put the Hawks up 4-2 on a short-handed breakaway, but he shot it into Devan Dubnyk's right leg.

"The biggest thing for me is playing both ends of the ice, but obviously you want to produce as well," Saad said. "I've always had pretty good success at that. Not the top of the league, but still enough to contribute to win hockey games.

"That's the type of player I want to be and obviously it's been a little bit of a slow start, but I think I've had some positive things and you've just got to keep improving."

The speedy Fortin was solid in his NHL debut against the Wild, creating numerous scoring chances for his line. Now he'll get to do so with one of the best players in the world in Kane. Fortin was with Kane, Schmaltz, Erik Gustafsson and Brent Seabrook on the top power-play unit as well.

"With that outside speed sometimes people don't know him as much and he might have surprised some guys with that quickness," Quenneville said. "You watch the games now it's all about guys who have that little quickness, acceleration in tight areas."