Swagger serving Hawks well
One of the characteristics the Blackhawks have developed the past couple of years is swagger.
Teams with swagger become targets. Opponents don't appreciate swagger. They consider being confronted by swagger an insult to their own manhood.
Not much the Hawks can do about it. Swagger isn't voluntary. If you have it, you have it, and if you don't, you don't.
The Hawks have it, albeit sort of subtly. They're confident bordering on cocky, though most of them drape the latter in a boyish charm.
Swagger helped the Hawks stroll into Vancouver on Tuesday night and score 2 second-period goals in 36 seconds and 2 third-period goals in 25 seconds.
It helped the Hawks instill in goalie Antti Niemi the confidence to win the first two rounds of his initial Stanley Cup playoff run.
Overall, swagger helped the Hawks clinch their Western Conference semifinal series in six games with a 5-1 victory in GM Place just two nights after they squandered a chance to win it in the United Center.
"The businesslike approach we had all day was professional," Hawks coach Joel Quenneville noted.
I don't know whether the Hawks can be classified as arrogant. Probably, because most good athletes are arrogant and most good teams are really arrogant.
Dustin Byfuglien exemplified Hawkey swagger - to paraphrase Lou Piniella's coining of "Cubbie swagger" - last week in Vancouver.
You know, when after one of Big Buff's goals in a hat-trick night he skated along the boards, raised his arms in triumph and essentially taunted Canucks fans through the glass.
Byfuglien is one of the players forming the Hawks' young nucleus, and their personalities have been evolving since Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane joined the group three seasons ago.
Now they all form a Blackhawks team that is good and believes it's very good after qualifying for the Western finals two straight years.
The Hawks can go on the road and believe in themselves so profoundly that neither odd ice nor odder fans bother them.
The Hawks are 5-1 as visitors during these playoffs because they can do what all good teams and potentially championship teams do: Stand in the middle of the playing surface, look up into the stands and smirk back at the hostility.
Could there possibly be a downside to Hawkey swagger?
Yes, if only because it prompts the Hawks to think they can turn themselves on anytime they want and they don't mind escalating their mission's degree of difficulty.
If the Hawks fall behind in a game, they are sure they'll rally. If they fall behind in a playoff series, they are sure they'll rally.
Allowing the Canucks to extend the series to six games means the Hawks will have more miles on them in the conference finals against San Jose, which has been resting.
No big deal, the Hawks believe. Swagger compels them to feel they will beat the Sharks anyway.
They'll have to do it by starting with two games in San Jose against the team that had the conference's best record.
"We like the way our approach is on the road," Quenneville said.
The Hawks' swagger will help in that situation as long as they don't raise the degree of difficulty too high.
mimrem@dailyherald.com