It's wait and see with Hawks' lines
When it comes to line combinations anything is possible with Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville.
At this point Quenneville doesn't even know how things will look on Oct. 7, when the Hawks open the season at Colorado. Quenneville already has said there's no guarantee Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane will begin the year together.
Kane scored the Stanley Cup-winning goal playing on a line with center Patrick Sharp, and Quenneville hinted that's how he might begin the season.
"You could go the way it ended up last year with Toews, (Tomas) Kopecky and (Marian) Hossa, and you have Sharp and Kane and whether it's (Bryan) Bickell or whether (Viktor) Stalberg, we have some other pieces as well," Quenneville said.
"It's kind of what we had last year with a lot of options in terms of who can play with who."
Kane and Sharp have played together in the early training camp scrimmages and have a goal and 10 assists between them.
Kane had 5 assists in two scrimmages on Monday, 3 of them coming on goals by Bickell.
Bickell now leads the tournament in scoring with 6 goals and is skating well and perhaps pushing for a job on the top two lines.
Hossa said Monday he is ready to play anywhere Quenneville wants.
"I'm open to every situation," Hossa said. "I never had a problem either staying with some player or the coach trying to change lines. That's fine with me. It's trying to find the best solution for the team."
Great story: Not every Stanley Cup celebration was played out in public over the summer.
For winger Troy Brouwer, his most memorable moment came when he brought the Stanley Cup home to Vancouver for his dad, Don, who continues to recover from brain surgery that sidetracked his son late last season and early in the playoffs.
"My dad was sitting at my kitchen table and looking all the names on the Stanley Cup," Brouwer said. "He listed off a couple like Mark Messier, Wayne Gretzky, Gordie Howe, Bobby Orr, and he said your name is going to be right engraved forever with them, so I'm so proud of you.
"That's probably my best Cup story. That was an extremely proud moment for me."
Important additions: It didn't make headlines when the Hawks re-signed veteran defensemen Jordan Hendry and Nick Boynton, but coach Joel Quenneville is pleased the two depth players from last season's Cup team are returning.
"They did a good job playing that (sixth and seventh defenseman) role last year," Quenneville said. "The fact that we were able to retain both guys gives us that depth and that balance and that predictability you want to have."
Tip-in: Defenseman John Scott was sick and didn't participate in Monday's scrimmages.