Blackhawks' injured Shaw stays behind

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Whoops, change of plans.

Remember how injured Blackhawks forward Andrew Shaw was going to fly with the team to Minnesota and possibly return to the lineup for Game 3 on Tuesday?

Yeah, that's been put on hold. Instead, the hope now is that Shaw will be traveling with the team when they return to Minnesota for Game 4.

"We still think he's going on the next part of this trip and could play Friday," coach Joel Quenneville said. "We'll see."

But is Shaw's apparent knee injury, which occurred following a collision with Clayton Stoner early in Game 1, still considered a short-term thing? "Yeah," Quenneville said. "Yep."

Who's on third (line)?

Ben Smith is up, Kris Versteeg is down. Brandon Bollig is scratched, Jeremy Morin is in.

To no one's surprise, Hawks coach Joel Quenneville has been shuffling the deck a lot lately.

And even less of a surprise is that, whether it's out of motivation or frustration, his players have been making it work like a charm during the Hawks' six-game playoff winning streak.

"We all want to win the game. We all want to play a lot; we all want to have lots of ice time," Duncan Keith said. "There's always that little bit of internal competition.

"I think that competition is good for a team."

Smooth operators:

After some bumpy times recently at the United Center, the Hawks are looking forward to what hopefully will be some pristine ice this week at the Xcel Energy Center.

"Yeah, it's nice to have good ice for our team," Marian Hossa said. "Definitely it helps. We are a puck-control team - we like to play that style - so it's to our advantage."

Block party:

One of the numbers that sticks out from Game 2 was the 25 blocked shots by the Hawks, with Niklas Hjalmarsson and Brent Seabrook combining for 10.

"I thought we had a lot of pucks from the blue line blocked, and I think that we can do things a little bit quicker back there," Wild coach Mike Yeo said. "Sometimes it's not taking that particular shot, too.

"Maybe it's keeping zone time alive and working for another opportunity to create a shot."

Pick up the pace:

The reasoning behind scratching Brandon Bollig for Game 2 was pretty basic, according to Joel Quenneville.

"Well, I think we're probably looking for more," he said. "It's his play. He had a real strong regular season, for the most part. Might just need more pace, I think that's what we're looking for."

He said it:

"We didn't play with the same pace (in Game 2). We've got to make fast decisions; we've got to make fast plays … I don't think we did that last game."

- Minnesota coach Mike Yeo