Hawks' defense on the offensive

You'll need to go back a few years, possibly to when Chris Chelios, Gary Suter and Eric Weinrich played, to find a defense that was considered a key part of the Blackhawks' offense.

Hawks coach Denis Savard wants his defense joining the offense, and so far it's working well.

The Hawks already have 11 goals from the defense, led by James Wisniewski's 4. That's more than half of the 21 they got out of the blue line all of last season.

The Hawks got another goal from a defenseman -- Jim Vandermeer -- in Friday's 4-2 win over St. Louis at the United Center.

"We've got a little more of a green light to jump up in the play this year," Wisniewski said. "And we have skilled enough forwards that can find us and the holes.

"We want to move the puck ahead, and if you have a few steps on your forward, we want to join the play. We have a defense where we all can score goals."

Savard asks the defense to not lead the rush, but to join it.

"You've got to be able to manage your game on defense, when it's time to go and when it's not time to go," Savard said. "We've got ability back there and we've got to use it to our advantage when we can."

The last Hawks defenseman to score as many as 10 goals in a season was Bryan Berard, who had 13 in 2003-04.

"It's just not a three-man attack," Savard said. "It's a five-man attack. We had, what, 21 goals last season? If we get to 40 or 50 it would be a good number to have."

Richmond sent down: Danny Richmond, who appeared in only one of the first 15 games, was sent to Rockford on Friday after clearing waivers.

The Hawks put Richmond on waivers Wednesday. It was required in order to send him down.

They were surprised no team took him.

"We wanted to give him a chance," Denis Savard said. "It was a tough call for all of us because we know he's a great kid, a character kid. We'd like to keep him around the organization because he gives you that work ethic, character and grit day in and day out."

The Hawks' active roster stands at 21 with Martin Havlat, David Koci and Andrei Zyuzin on the injured reserve list and Kevyn Adams about to follow.

Time will tell: Denis Savard again warned not to read anything into a second straight start Friday for backup goalie Patrick Lalime over Nikolai Khabibulin.

"We've got two veteran goalies here who have been good throughout their careers," Savard said. "I said prior to the season that Patrick would play about 25 games, and he's on that pace."