Quenneville shakes up Hawks’ lines
As he hinted he might do following Thursday’s loss to St. Louis in a shootout, Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville shook up his lines Friday at practice as a way to help jump-start a stagnant offense.
The Hawks haven’t scored a goal in six straight third periods.
Quenneville split up Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane. The captain will center for Marian Hossa and Brandon Saad on Saturday against Toronto at the United Center.
Kane will skate on the second line with Michal Handzus and Patrick Sharp, while Bryan Bickell was dropped to the third line with center Marcus Kruger and Andrew Shaw.
Brandon Pirri centers the fourth line for Brandon Bollig and Joakim Nordstrom.
“I’m a little bit more comfortable with the lines today,” Quenneville said Friday. “We had a lot of success with that top line coming out of the playoffs and we started like that. We feel we have more balance with the way we looked today.”
Quenneville has never been afraid to split up Toews and Kane.
“It gives the other team a lot to be concerned with as far as who you want to check, who you want to play who against,” Quenneville said. “We’ve still got some threats on other lines when they’re together, but at the same time I feel like productivity should be shared across the board.”
Toews has started slowly with 2 goals and 2 assists in seven games. Bickell is still looking for his first goal.
“We don’t see (offense) as a problem,” Toews said. “We’ve got a lot of talent in this locker room. Scoring just comes from confidence. Changing things up a little bit, we’ve always done that in the past. That’s nothing new.”
Hossa missed practice Friday with a maintenance day, but Quenneville expects him to face the Maple Leafs.
Another missing puck?
Dave Bolland claims not to have the puck from Boston in Game 6 when he scored the Stanley Cup winning goal in the final minute for the Hawks.
“I don’t know if I do — come to think of it, I don’t think I do,” Bolland said. “(At the time), it didn’t seem important. Being in the (celebration) scrum was the most important thing.”
The Hawks still don’t have the puck from Patrick Kane’s overtime goal in 2010 that clinched the Cup in Game 6 against the Flyers.
Bolland allows himself to drift back to that moment every now and then.
“For sure, you do go back, drift back, whatever you want to call it,” he said. “You can’t get away from it. You see video clips and highlights on TV, which is cool. You see that and you almost put yourself back to that time, back to that moment. It’s a great memory.”
Rat moment:Patrick Kane was asked to recall his favorite memory of Dave Bolland other than the goal in Boston.#147;Probably the thing with the Sedins as far as what he called them on the radio,#148; Kane said. #147;He was always effective getting under their skin. That#146;s what I remember him doing on the ice.#148;Bolland called them the Sedin #147;sisters#148; during a radio interview and later apologized.A reminder:Saturday#146;s game against Toronto starts an hour earlier at 6 p.m. for Hockey Night in Canada.