Blackhawks boffo on back-to-backers

It's truly an amazing statistic and one the Blackhawks can look back on as being critically important if they hold on and win the Western Conference.

By beating St. Louis 6-5 on Wednesday, the Hawks finished their set of 19 back-to-back games this season with a record of 15-1-3 on the second night.

That's 33 out of a possible 38 points on the back end when many teams simply fall victim to fatigue.

"It is pretty amazing that on back-to-back nights we lose one game in regulation over the course of 19," Hawks coach Joel Quenneville said. "It says that guys are competitive and they prepare and they play game in, game out.

"That's a pretty good reflection of the character of your team. Some nights on back-to-back nights it's a challenge, especially on the road. It's a good stat and I think it helped us along the way through come challenges and sustained some momentum with those type of games."

Chipping in: The Hawks' fourth-line players continue to produce.

Goals by Ben Eager and Bryan Bickell in the win over St. Louis followed Colin Fraser's 2-goal game Tuesday in Dallas and Tomas Kopecky's 2 goals last week at Minnesota and his 1 Sunday against Calgary.

"We're getting pretty good production from that line," Joel Quenneville said. "It's been very effective and productive, spending a lot of zone time as well, so that's given us a lot of energy.

"Our rotation with our four lines has been better than we've seen for a long stretch of games."

It's going to be hard for Quenneville to go away from Fraser, Eager and Kopecky in the playoffs, though Kopecky missed Wednesday's game with an upper body injury.

"It seems like we had our ups and downs," Fraser said. "We started a little slow in the season and in the middle there we found a little bit of chemistry. I think we found our chemistry again that we found in January before the Olympic break."

Taking a pass: Ben Eager didn't feel the need to drop the gloves when the Blues' Cam Janssen challenged him to fight on Wednesday.

"He pretty much has asked me to fight every shift of my career," Eager told reporters. "I didn't think it was the time or place. We have playoffs around the corner.

"There's no point in getting in a pointless fight and the majority of fights against that guy are pointless, so I just tried to play a good game and stay healthy for the playoffs."

Good news: Marian Hossa made the trip to Colorado on Thursday after leaving the St. Louis game in the second period with an undisclosed injury Joel Quenneville said wasn't serious.