Hawks expect stiff test with rival Wings back to full strength

It's a playoff scenario that has been talked about for weeks.

Can you say the Blackhawks and the Red Wings in the first round?

Even Hawks coach Joel Quenneville admitted on Saturday it would not be an ideal situation for his team.

"With that experience alone, I don't think anybody wants to meet that team," Quenneville said. "But there's a lot of people chomping at the bit to get that spot.

"The way it sits right now, that's going to be a long process, and I think that's going to fluctuate and change daily. I think it's way too early to even think about who it could be."

The Hawks and San Jose likely will battle to the wire for first place in the Western Conference while the Red Wings have been going back and forth between seventh, eighth and ninth place, largely because of the injuries that have ravaged them this season.

The Red Wings were without nine regulars when the Hawks shut them out in back-to-back games in December. Now Detroit comes to the United Center on Sunday as healthy as it has been all season.

"They've gone the majority of the season without the lineup they have today," Quenneville said. "I'm sure they're excited about having their full lineup playing us."

Deep down the Hawks know that to get out of the Western Conference in the playoffs and reach the Stanley Cup Finals, the road likely will go through Detroit at some point - whether it's in the first round, second or conference finals.

"You wouldn't expect the Wings to sneak in as the seventh or eighth seed, but the way we look at it in here is they're a great team and if we want to accomplish some of the things we want to accomplish, they're a team we're going to have to beat," winger Patrick Sharp said.

"Whether we see them in the first round, the conference finals, wherever, that's a team we're going to have to go through."

This will be another rivalry game for the Hawks, who rose to the occasion on Friday in their 6-3 win over the Vancouver Canucks.

But these are the Red Wings coming to town - the team the Hawks have always tried to measure themselves against, and the team that knocked them out of the playoffs last spring in the West finals.

"(Friday's) game came at a perfect time for us," Sharp said. "We weren't exactly playing our best hockey and it forced us to kind of raise our level, and I thought we responded well.

"Vancouver is a big rival and Detroit's the biggest. Those are two games you get up for."

The Hawks have defeated the Red Wings three times in four games this season, but they won't truly be satisfied until they beat Detroit when it really counts."

"Once we beat them in a playoff season we'll feel we've got them back," captain Jonathan Toews said.

"It's a big game for us," Patrick Kane said. "We want to prove to ourselves we can beat this team with their full lineup.

"It wouldn't be an ideal situation to play them in the first round, but throughout the season you work so hard to put yourself in a position to either finish first in the division and first in the conference.

"That's probably the goal for us, to finish first in the conference and make sure we get that home-ice advantage. That could come key in a series if you do play Detroit and have that extra game at home."