Hawks, Canucks prove you don't need to play at home to win

Home-ice advantage? What home-ice advantage?

The Blackhawks eliminated the Canucks on Monday in Game 6 of their Western Conference semifinals series in Vancouver with a 5-1 victory. It was the fifth time the visiting team prevailed during the series.

"It's tough to know why," Hawks coach Joel Quenneville said. "I don't know if anyone can say exactly why.

"Starts have been important. You score a goal early (as the road team), all of a sudden you get excited and take the crowd out of it and you can do what you need to do."

The Hawks scored 17 goals in their three wins at GM Place.

"I don't have an answer for that," Canucks coach Alain Vigneault said when asked to explain what happened at home. "This is a place we love to play."

The Hawks admitted after they dropped Game 5 at the United Center that they got too fancy, perhaps trying to please the home fans.

"At home lately we've been trying to get a little too cute," Hawks winger Andrew Ladd said.

Vancouver's Daniel Sedin said teams could fall into a trap of trying to put on a show at home.

"The league is so tight that it doesn't really matter who's got home ice," Sedin said. "It gives you a little boost, but at the same time it can make you over-excited. But I prefer playing at home, for sure."

Brouwer returns: Winger Troy Brouwer was back in the lineup Tuesday after being a healthy scratch for three games, and he scored the first goal of the game in the second period.Brouwer replaced Tomas Kopecky, who didn't have a shot on goal in 13 minutes in Game 5 and passed up several good scoring chances looking to make a pass.

Brouwer's game has struggled since the final weeks of the regular season when he left the team after his father was diagnosed with a blood clot on his brain.

Brouwer admitted it has been hard to focus at times but said his dad told him recently it was time to start concentrating on his hockey again.

"I got to see him last week and that really helped me a lot, to see how much progress he's made," Brouwer said. "To actually see for yourself how well he's doing, it was a big morale booster for me. It brought me quite a bit of confidence."

Odd, but true: Through their first 12 playoff games, the Hawks had been involved in only one game decided by 1 goal - that being their overtime win over Nashville in Game 5 of the first round.

"You expect going into game that you're going to have some tight games and some close games," Joel Quenneville said. "In the Nashville series it seemed like a lot of games were close, but maybe they didn't end up by 1 goal.

"They seemed like they were a lot closer than these games (against Vancouver)."