Blackhawks' Shaw to return for Game 3
LOS ANGELES — OK, it's official: Andrew Shaw will be back in the lineup Saturday for Game 3.
“He's on the trip,” Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville confirmed Thursday. “We expect him to play on Saturday.”
And they're expecting Shaw to provide a much-needed boost after Wednesday's drubbing at the hands of the Kings.
“He's got some skills, he's got some abrasiveness, he's got the right attitude to find a way to get the job done,” Quenneville said. “Getting him back in the lineup is exciting.”
As for whom Shaw will replace in the lineup, well, that's still TBD.
“We pretty well have our minds made up, but we'll get a practice (Friday) and go from there,” Quenneville said.
Birds of a feather:
Joel Quenneville admitted recently that he's not much of a rah-rah speech kind of guy, and as it turns out, neither is his counterpart, Darryl Sutter.
Asked if he addressed his team in the second intermission Wednesday while trailing 2-1, the Kings coach basically said that kind of stuff just isn't his bag.
“Quite honestly, you hear about all these big speeches that coaches make and all that, and you know what? The players are getting the (stuffing) beat out of them,” he said.
“They don't need some coach coming in there yelling and hollering. I don't get that. That's not me. I don't do that.
“There's that leadership (in the room). There's that group of guys, and you trust what they're doing. If you have to reinforce something, reinforce it. If not, stay out of their way.”
Searching for silver lining:
Even though the final score indicated a romp, Hawks players were looking at the bright side following their Game 2 loss.
“I don't think we're happy with the way it ended and unfolded, but looking back, there are a lot of good things we did and we have to learn from it,” Duncan Keith said.
“Just be angrier out there. Play with more compete and find a way to finish games, especially when we put ourselves in a good spot over the first 40 minutes,” Ben Smith said.
“The first couple periods were the way we wanted to play,” said Nick Leddy, who had the highlight goal of the night. “The third obviously really wasn't.
”I think we have to sit down and look at it a little bit, but you have to let it go.”
That was easier said than done for Joel Quenneville.
“I woke up this morning way more angry than when I exited the game,” he admitted. “Normally it's the other way around.”
He said it:
“Hey, we had to win in Chicago, otherwise we have no chance of winning the series. No chance.”
— Kings coach Darryl Sutter