Goalie Turco gets to work with his defense

With the Blackhawks going with a mostly veteran lineup Saturday against the Red Wings at the United Center, goalie Marty Turco got the chance to become familiar under game conditions with the defenseman he's going to spend the season playing behind.

Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook, Brian Campbell, Niklas Hjalmarsson and John Scott all played against the Red Wings.

Turco likes to handle the puck and communicating with his defensemen is vital to making it work.

"He's just going to add to our defense," Seabrook said. "It's like having a third defenseman out there, which is nice. I know playing against Dallas all the time that was one thing we were always worried about is how we dumped it in.

"I think it's definitely going to help our mobile defense and help all six, seven or eight of us get the puck up to the forwards and let them do their magic."

Seabrook, Hjalmarsson and Scott made their preseason debuts Saturday. Keith played against Tampa Bay for half the game behind Turco while Campbell was in the lineup Friday at Detroit when Corey Crawford was in goal.

"Having (Turco), we're not going to have to go behind the net a lot of times to get pucks," Campbell said. "We can kind of go to our corners and receive passes from him and I think our penalty killing will improve with him making sure it's rimmed or he can ice it down himself.

"It's going to take us a little while to get to know him and get used to it and where he wants us and where we want him."

More roster cuts: The Hawks moved out 10 more players Saturday, leaving the training-camp roster at 37.

Forwards Brandon Bollig, Rob Klimkhammer and Brandon Pirri were assigned to Rockford along with defensemen Ivan Vishnevskiy, Jonathan Carlsson, Simon Danis-Pepin and Ryan Stanton.

Forwards Rastislav Pavlikovsky and Nick Tarnasky and defenseman Wade Brookbank were released.

Vishnevskiy came to camp amid much promise but struggled to make an impression. He was in the lineup Friday at Detroit and was minus-2 with 3 giveaways in 18 minutes.

The Hawks also returned David Gilbert to his junior team.

Mark it down: The Hawks announced that Dec. 17 will be Chris Chelios Heritage Night prior to the game against Detroit.