Rozner: Blackhawks smother Wild in sweep

If you hadn't seen the first seven games of the postseason, you would think the Blackhawks are unbeatable.

That is, after all, how they've looked the last three games.

As quickly as they could have lost the first series with a particularly ugly brand of hockey, the Hawks have turned it around and hit their stride, and with three brilliant games they closed out the Minnesota Wild with a 4-3 victory and a series sweep at the Xcel Center on Thursday night.

Now they get to rest a few days while waiting most likely for a trip to Orange County, where they would face the Ducks - assuming they put an end to what has been a nice story in Calgary.

This is the Hawks' fifth trip to the conference finals in seven years under coach Joel Quenneville, and they're now 14-4 in closeout games under their Hall of Fame coach.

But it's not just that the Hawks won four straight over Minnesota. It's the way they beat the Wild the last three games, playing extraordinary defensive hockey that involves every player and 200 feet of ice, smart in all three zones and patient for 60 minutes.

Their forwards have spent most of the last two games on the road below the circles in their own end, a responsibility that can win you a lot of games in the postseason when you have an offense that creates off turnovers and off the rush with a defense that consistently finds forwards in stride.

The Hawks imposed their will on the Wild with a relentless defense that gave Minnesota almost nothing the last three games, and they broke their spirit by scoring on the few good chances they could find.

Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook, Niklas Hjalmarsson and Johnny Oduya were simply smothering in these last few games and the Wild just didn't have enough to compete.

It also helps to get solid goaltending, and since a bad goal early in the third period of Game 2, Corey Crawford has also found himself again and looked like the player he was in the regular season, when he was as good as any netminder in the league.

Is this a sign that the Hawks are shedding their multiple personalities?

It's worth remembering that they played an extraordinary first period against Minnesota in Game 1 before resorting back to their wacky ways, and then followed that up with three brilliant games.

"You've got to be careful saying you can turn it on and off like a light switch, because you can get yourself into some deep trouble that way," said Patrick Sharp. "But we're a team that has a number of veteran players that have been through a lot of playoff series, and even our younger guys have played some pretty meaningful games in their careers already.

"So you try not to get too excited or too negative when things aren't going very well. Things didn't look so good for a while there. There was a lot of talk about how we were playing, but we came together at the right time, and hopefully we can have that continue."

The Hawks did not trail for one second in the series and outscored Minnesota 9-4 the final three games as they tightened up their defense and remembered how to win games in May.

A wild scramble over the final couple minutes made the game seem closer than it was, with the Hawks going up 4-1 on goals by Patrick Kane and Marian Hossa, his first in 22 postseason games, and then hanging on by their fingernails as the Wild brought everything they had.

Michael Rozsival went down with a left leg injury midway through the second and that will be a story going forward because it means more minutes for Kimmo Timonen, which is never a good thing, but at least on Thursday night the story was about the Hawks' new approach.

And it's the reason they're in the final four again.

brozner@dailyherald.com

• Listen to Barry Rozner from 9 a.m. to noon Sundays on the Score's "Hit and Run" show at WSCR 670-AM.