Hawks looking to grind it out to all-star break

It appears to have all caught up to the Blackhawks in the last week - a stretch of eight of 11 games on the road, the whirlwind hype for the Winter Classic, you name it.

The Hawks righted the ship a bit Sunday with their 3-1 win over Nashville at the United Center that snapped a two-game losing streak and started a new stretch of five of six at home.

"I think guys are a little bit tired right now, to be honest with you," Duncan Keith said. "This is the part of the season where it gets to be a bit of a tough go."

The Hawks fought through their fatigue to win Sunday after a sluggish performance in Nashville on Saturday in a 4-1 loss.

"The Blackhawks were a lot more physical tonight," Nashville's J.P. Dumont said. "They came out more determined."

The Hawks still have five games to play before they get six days off for the all-star break, but at least four of them are at home where they are 13-2-4, including the Winter Classic at Wrigley Field.

"We're all looking forward to being home here," Keith said. "I think if we can push hard these last few games to the all-star break, we separate ourselves that much more."

Second to none: Mike Blunden, traded to Columbus on Saturday, joins a disturbingly long list of failed second-round draft picks by the Hawks going way back.

In the late 1980s, the Hawks took Mark Kurzawski, Ryan McGill and Mike Speer in the second round.

The Hawks had 14 second-round picks in the 1990s and used them on Ivan Droppa, Mike Pomichter, Jamie Matthews, Jeff Shantz, Sergei Klimovich, Eric Manlow, Jean-Yves Leroux, Christian Laflamme, Remi Royer, Jeff Paul, Geoff Peters, Jeremy Reich, Dmitri Levinski and Stephan Mokhov.

This decade has yielded Duncan Keith and Dave Bolland, but second-round misses include Jonas Nordqvist, Matt Keith, Michal Barinka, Ryan Garlock, Jakub Sindel and Blunden. The jury remains out on Corey Crawford, Bryan Bickell, Dan Bertram, Simon Danis-Pepin, Igor Makarov, Bill Sweatt and Akim Aliu.

Leading man: Andrew Ladd continues to lead all Hawks forward in plus-minus. Ladd was plus-2 in Sunday's win over Nashville making him plus-18 for the season.

"Ladd is one of those guys you might not recognize his effectiveness when you look at his production, but when you watch him play he's been very much a part of our team and our team success," Joel Quenneville said.

Tip-in: Troy Brouwer and Aaron Johnson were healthy scratches. It was the first time Brouwer sat since being recalled from Rockford on Oct. 22.