Better power play a high priority

Improving the power play during the regular season is high on coach Joel Quenneville's agenda.

The Blackhawks finished 16th in the league on the power play last season and were a miserable 29th at home despite elite offensive players such as Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Marian Hossa, Patrick Sharp and Duncan Keith.

"One of the things about our power play is we've had so many great players over the years and it's kind of hard to believe we haven't had a great power play," Kane said.

"I think when we put our mind to it like we have in the past two playoffs, we've been really good on the power play and scored some big goals. Last year we were in the top five and then the top 10 then you wind up 16th. We've got to be a little more consistent there."

Quenneville would be happy with a power play ranking in the top 10 in the league.

"We feel with our personnel we should be better than we were last year," Quenneville said. "Our goal is to be in the top 10 and really, objectively, we'd like to be top five. There's production in our 5-on-5 play and we feel it should be correlated to our power play."

More to him: Joel Quenneville wants to see John Scott develop his all-around game and not strictly be considered a fighter, which is good news for the defenseman.

"Obviously, I'm a big guy and that's what everyone sees, like I'm always going to come in and fight all the time, but I kind of want to do more than that," Scott said. "I want to be a stay-at-home, solid fifth or sixth defenseman and go out there and shut down their third or fourth line, be a solid guy back there who could eat up some minutes for the top four guys to get a break."

Sitting it out: The Hawks had 27 players on their roster for their preseason opener against Tampa Bay, meaning seven didn't play.

Those scratched were Brian Campbell, Kyle Beach, Rob Klinkhammer, Marian Hossa, Patrick Kane, Brent Seabrook and Troy Brouwer.

With Beach sitting, the Hawks got a look at forwards Jack Skille, Igor Makarov, Jeremy Morin, David Gilbert, Nick Tarnasky and Evan Brophey.

In and out: The Hawks flew to Winnipeg the morning of Wednesday's game and home afterwards. They'll be following the same travel routine throughout the preseason for remaining road games at Detroit, Pittsburgh and St. Louis.