Blackhawks coach praises Campbell's play in series

While there were plenty of heroes to go around for the Blackhawks in their Western Conference semifinal series win over Vancouver, coach Joel Quenneville made it a point to single out how well defenseman Brian Campbell played.

Campbell had 2 more assists in Monday's 7-5 clincher, giving him 4 in the last two games of the series. Campbell played more than 19 minutes and was plus-2.

"Soupy had a tremendous series," Quenneville said. "He was dangerous and a threat offensively with the speed out of our zone and off the rush, off the point.

"I thought defensively he was solid as well. He was a threat every time he touched the ice. His speed really enhanced our speed game."

Campbell downplayed his personal accomplishments in the series.

"I'm just trying to support and help out as much as I can and be a leader," Campbell said. "It's a fun time to play hockey right now, and I'm looking forward for it to continue."

This will be Campbell's second trip to the conference finals. He went to the East finals with Buffalo in 2006 when the Sabres lost to a Caroline team that won the Stanley Cup.

"It's how close you come as a team and how hard you work," Campbell said. "I still remember it was June 1 when we lost, and how hard we were battling."

Rags to riches: Patrick Sharp wore a satisfied look after Monday's Game 6 win as one of the few Hawks who made it through the hard times to now be headed to the conference finals.

"Maybe a couple years ago, thinking about it, it might have been tough to believe," Sharp said. "But this year right from the start we knew we had something special and we knew we had a team that could compete with the best in the league.

"It feels nice to win a couple series, and we'd like to win a couple more."

Feel the power: For the second series in a row, the Hawks' power play came up big and was a deciding factor.

The Hawks were 8-for-27 against the Canucks, including 3 power-play goals in Monday's win.

"We made the same mistakes in most of the games, taking too many penalties," Canucks forward Daniel Sedin said. "Chicago is too good of an offensive team to give them opportunities. It proved costly to us.

"In this series, the better team won."

Shell shocked: Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo never had given up 7 goals in a game until Monday.

"It's going to take a long time to get over this," said Luongo, who finished the six-game series with a 3.50 goals-against average and .879 save percentage.