Young Hawks prepping for first playoff games

There were no guarantees the Blackhawks would make the playoffs when the season started in October.

The Hawks had a ton of questions to answer, starting with the team being the youngest in the NHL.

General manager Dale Tallon spent the entire training camp trying to trade goalie Nikolai Khabibulin, preferring to go that route to begin the year rather than have more than $12 million tied up in him and Cristobal Huet.

Nobody knew if Martin Havlat could stay healthy.

There were holes on defense behind Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook and Brian Campbell.

And there was mounting pressure on coach Denis Savard to push his team through the tough times after falling 3 points shy of making the playoffs last year.

That last question was answered quickly when Savard was fired after just four games and replaced by Joel Quenneville.

The Hawks went 19-4-6 in the first 29 games under Quenneville that included a nine-game winning streak in December that laid the foundation for what will be the team's first playoff berth since 2002.

The Hawks finally can nail down a playoff spot Friday night by earning 1 point against Nashville at the United Center. They could have clinched Thursday night, but St. Louis won at Detroit and Anaheim rallied for a victory in a shootout at Vancouver.

Once the Hawks do clinch, they will open the playoffs either April 15 or April 16, depending on where they finish in the Western Conference.

"I think we should all welcome this challenge and welcome this opportunity," Quenneville said. "It's a fun time of year to be playing.

"We should welcome the excitement that's out there and at the same time know there is a price to pay and (with) the willingness to pay it you get rewarded with how good it feels."

The young and mostly inexperienced Hawks certainly will be an underdog when the playoffs start, which is fine with them.

"We can make an impact in the postseason," said center Sammy Pahlsson, who won a Stanley Cup with Anaheim in 2007. "We have a good team. We have all the tools. We just have to get it together when it counts."

The Hawks have six games remaining to fine-tune themselves at both ends of the ice.

The 3-1 win over St. Louis on Wednesday was the kind of tight-checking, low-scoring chance-against game the Hawks will need to produce on a consistent basis in the playoffs.

"Everyone has to help out everywhere on the ice," Pahlsson said. "I think we've learned we have to play well from the start of the game, make good plays to get everyone involved."

"Playing from behind doesn't suit anyone's style, certainly not ours," Patrick Sharp said. "We need to play harder."

Finding the consistency to play with the necessary passion and emotion is what the Hawks need most before many of them play in their first playoff game.

As good as the Hawks were Wednesday in beating the Blues, their effort was not acceptable in losing to Montreal on Tuesday and Vancouver on Sunday.

"It's not a case of being too young," Adam Burish said. "It's an attitude. It's playing with pride. It's playing with that desire to fight for every inch. It's not something you can switch on. We've got to find a way to start doing that."

Quenneville was encouraged by how the Hawks checked against the Blues with an eye to the playoffs, where checking is at the root of success.

"We've got to get back to little things matter - positioning, winning puck battles, getting to the front of the net," Quenneville said. "We have to make them earn their goals.

"I think we've been giving up some goals lately that we'll call on the generous side. We have to make sure we're hard in those areas and make them pay the price if they want to score."

Special teams often make the difference in the playoffs, and right now the Hawks' power play is going through a tough time. It was 0-for-8 against the Blues, is 0-for-17 in the last three games and 2 for its last 37.

"We're going to work on our power play to make sure in the big games coming up that it's ready to go," Jonathan Toews said. "We know it can make the difference, so we're going to bear down and keep focusing on it."