Quenneville all business when it comes to coaching Blackhawks

The ever-present scowl Joel Quenneville wears behind the Blackhawks bench doesn't define him.

"I don't think he's too angry," Hawks winger Patrick Sharp said. "He's competitive and little things often set him off, but he's on top of every little detail and he holds us accountable.

"When you see him animated on the bench, I don't think he's trying to put on a show by any means. He's just in the heat of the game."

Away from the ice Quenneville is personable and has a good sense of humor with an infectious laugh.

But when it comes to coaching, in general, and the Hawks, in particular, he is all business, whether it's conducting practice, in video sessions with his players or the to-the-point way he deals with the media.

"Everything we do is quick," defenseman Brian Campbell said. "We do video, and we do it quick. Everything in practice is short and quick. Those are things we learn from. He wanted us to play his way, and it's not a difficult way to play, but any way else is not acceptable.

"Everybody has to play that way, and we know it from Day One."

The experienced Quenneville made a world of difference with the Hawks last season after taking over for Denis Savard after just four games.

Management felt the young Hawks needed an experienced voice behind the bench and the move, while unpopular with many at first because it meant the icon Savard was being booted out the door, turned out to be a key to the Hawks' getting 104 points and ultimately reaching the Western Conference finals.

"More than anything he brought a lot leadership and experience," defenseman Duncan Keith said. "We were a young group, and we still are a young group, and he came in and just with that leadership and experience brought a lot of structure to our team.

"We as young players listened to him and looked at him as a guy who's been in the league for a long time and coached a lot of great players.

"So when he's speaking, you listen to what he has to say because what he's saying is probably going to work. That experience he brought kind of gave us some confidence inside our room."

The Hawks instantly responded to Quenneville's message.

"He took over as our leader right away," Sharp said. "We had a young team that was fairly inexperienced, and to have a coach with all those games coached and the success he's had behind the bench, we just responded well."

Quenneville modestly downplays the impact he made last season even if the results were there for everyone to see, starting with a more structured approach to playing team defense.

"I inherited a pretty good hockey club right from the get-go that was well prepared to play," Quenneville said. "We made a couple adjustments more so in our end than with any real systems."

The Hawks played a more up-tempo game after Quenneville arrived. Their passing was crisper, they went to the net harder, and the defensemen pounded more pucks at the goaltender.

The Hawks played as they practiced.

"We want everything done quickly - our puck movement, the speed of our game," Quenneville said. "We feel the team that plays that type of system is going to be successful. With quickness, you draw penalties, you get to the puck, you're on the puck.

"We want to force the pace of the game. We want to be quick and we want to be hard to play against. We definitely want to be an attacking-type team."

The Hawks last season learned to appreciate Quenneville's reward system as well.

"If you play well, you get rewarded, and he rewarded us in a lot of different ways that probably a lot of people didn't see," Campbell said.

"It makes coming to the rink fun every day. We had days off, took some trips during the season - little things like that that come into play.

"I never had so many days off and I thought I didn't like it, but it was amazing how fresh we were at times throughout the season."