Hawks in agreement: Let's keep the pieces together

If it's not broken, why fix it?

That was pretty much the sentiment expressed by Blackhawks general manager Dale Tallon on Friday in the aftermath of the team's highly successful run through the regular season and playoffs.

While there are certain to be some changes to the team that took Detroit to five games in the Western Conference finals following a 104-point regular season, Tallon said not to expect anything too drastic.

"Why do we need to be drastic?" Tallon said. "I don't think we need to be drastic, but we're certainly looking to improve. I think a little fine tuning and we'll be good."

If anything, Tallon would like to see what was the youngest team in the NHL add some experience.

"We've got to get more experience in all areas as far as composure in certain games against certain teams," Tallon said in an obvious reference to the Red Wings. "I think adding another experienced player, whether it be a forward or defenseman, I'm not quite sure yet."

The Hawks will hold organizational meetings on Thursday to discuss plans for shaping the 2009-10 roster. A key topic will be goaltending, where the likely scenario is letting Nikolai Khabibulin walk as an unrestricted free agent and handing the No. 1 job to Cristobal Huet with either Corey Crawford or Antti Niemi as the backup.

Tallon sidestepped questions about Khabibulin's future.

"Nik was great and we'll talk," Tallon said. "We'll see what happens. We're going to meet Thursday and discuss everything and go over the roster, who's going to be here and who's not going to be here.

"We have depth in goal, a lot of young prospects, and we'll see what happens. Nik was very good this year, and it was very positive to see Cristóbal have a great finish the other night and play the way he is capable."

The Hawks have roughly $36 million committed to salaries for next season under the $56.7 million NHL salary cap that Tallon doesn't expect to decrease.

Tallon wants to re-sign unrestricted free agents Martin Havlat and Sammy Pahlsson. The team also must find money to re-sign key restricted free agents Dave Bolland, Kris Versteeg, Troy Brouwer, Cam Barker and Ben Eager.

Tallon is confident he can make the money work, even looking beyond next season when Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane and Duncan Keith must be re-signed.

"The key for us is to keep the nucleus of this team together for the longest possible time," Tallon said. "That's our goal, and we'll achieve that goal.

"We'll address the free agent situation here and put the best possible team on the ice again next year and expect to move up another notch. We're committed to winning the Stanley Cup. We got a little taste of it this year, and we're going to develop and build on that for next year."

The players realize that in this economic climate in the NHL in the salary cap era, there are no guarantees that teams can stay together.

"Hopefully they can figure something out to keep this group together, but that's probably not realistic," Kane said.

"There's going to be change, there always is for every team," Brian Campbell said. "But if you can identify your core and keep that together, that's what teams seem to be doing in the salary cap era. Hopefully that can be done. Obviously there are a couple big guys we'd like to see back, but we'll see what happens."

It's always possible the Hawks will look to make a significant trade over the summer. While some critics contend the Hawks might have too many of the same kind of small and skilled forwards such as Kane, Versteeg, Havlat and Patrick Sharp, Tallon disagreed.

"It's not the size of the body, it's the size of the heart," Tallon said. "We didn't back down from anyone. I think our overall team toughness was exceptional. Even our small skill guys have a lot of character and aren't intimidated by anyone. We have a lot of size and strength coming through the system and we'll continue to get bigger, stronger and faster."

Hawks coach Joel Quenneville refused to get pinned down on what areas he felt needed to be improved.

"We were close," Quenneville said. "The ingredients are there. To say you need this or that, I don't really say it's one thing. Maybe it's learning how to win the bigger the games get and the deeper you get."