Fresh start for Havlat

ST. LOUIS - If there is one of the Blackhawks who might be looking forward to a fresh start under new coach Joel Quenneville the most, it's Martin Havlat.

There were no secrets when it came to the strained relationship between Havlat and former coach Denis Savard, although they were able to keep their differences mostly private.

Havlat said all the right things Saturday in his first comments since Savard's dismissal Thursday.

"We have a new coach and it's a new beginning," Havlat said. "There may be a few different things, but not that many changes."

Havlat averaged almost 20 minutes of ice time in the first four games under Savard, but in Wednesday's 4-1 victory over Phoenix he got only 1:55 of power-play time compared to 3:53 for Kris Versteeg, 3:35 for Andrew Ladd and 2:02 for Dave Bolland.

"It's up to the coach how he puts his players on the ice. We'll see," Havlat said when asked if his power-play role would change under Quenneville. "I want to be on the ice like everyone else all the time, but like I said it's up to the coach."

Quenneville sees Havlat as a guy who should make the difference in games.

"He's a top guy and I think he can be the difference-maker on a lot of nights, the last game (against Phoenix) as an example," Quenneville said. "Top guys like that you want to enhance their creativity and support that in a lot of areas. We're looking for consistency in a lot of guys and we expect our top guys to lead in a lot of ways, and he's one of them."

Money no factor: Joel Quenneville has a reputation of being demanding of his goaltenders. And he said Saturday he plans to treat Nikolai Khabibulin and Cristobal Huet the same as he would any goalies even through Khabibulin makes $6.75 million and Huet $5.6 million.

"The political decision making, as far as my position as coach, that doesn't bother me at all," Quenneville said. "We're here to win, and the influence from that has no effect on me at all."

Line it up: Don't expect to see line combinations set in stone from Joel Quenneville.

"Over the course of games we can adjust lines to the way we feel guys are playing and working and what the score is all about," Quenneville said. "I'm comfortable with changing lines pretty regularly. I think everybody should be compatible with each other as we go along."