Hawks more than ready to go Duck hunting
Players are tired of practicing, reporters are running out of questions and the Western Conference final can't arrive soon enough for the Blackhawks, their fans or the media.
Thursday at Johnny's IceHouse West brought a second straight day of practice for the Hawks, who will fly to Anaheim on Friday in preparation for Game 1 of the highly-anticipated series Sunday afternoon at the Honda Center (2 p.m., NBC).
By the time the puck is dropped, the Hawks will have spent 10 days since wrapping up their second-round series with a sweep of the Minnesota Wild. They've enjoyed the rest, but the down time has been a challenge.
"It's been a long time," Patrick Sharp said. "It's been a long week. You take the rest when you can get it, but we're to the point where we're trying to simulate game situations and get the body feeling like we can play a game. We'll be ready to go for Game 1."
Wednesday's practice was the longest of the season, just eclipsing the one-hour mark. Thursday's was about 45 minutes and included a 5-on-5 scrimmage along with drills intended to ramp up physicality.
"You want to have a good mix of competitive drills, but you also want to be safe out there and make sure you're not injuring your teammates or yourself," Sharp said. "This time of year, we're all professionals. We know what it takes to get ourselves ready to play. Our coach has done a good job of preparing us, but at the same time we're pros and hopefully we'll be ready to go."
Crawford confident:
After sweeping the Wild, goalie Corey Crawford has his black mask back and his timing to go with it.
The mask has a new cage, after the previous one was dented in the last round, and Crawford has a new outlook after rebounding strong from a turbulent series against Nashville to start the playoffs. He allowed only 7 goals in the sweep of the Wild and heads into the conference final against the Ducks feeling good.
"I never necessarily get low, confidence-wise, about my game," he said. "I was a little ticked off, I guess you could say, that I wasn't in there. But I was still ready to get back in. I was working hard. Sometimes things don't go your way and you can't really let your emotions affect your play after that."
Quenneville juggles defensive pairings:
Hawks coach Joel Quenneville tried a little experiment Thursday during practice. Rather than pairing David Rundblad with Duncan Keith, he put Keith with Niklas Hjalmarsson and had Johnny Oduya play with Brent Seabrook.
Those were the pairings Quenneville used for most of the third period in Game 4 against the Wild, after Michal Rozsival left the game with a fractured left ankle. Rozsival played primarily with Keith in the playoffs, and that's where Rundblad worked Wednesday.
A day later he alternated with Kimmo Timonen and Kyle Cumiskey, as Quenneville tinkered.
"Let's see," Quenneville said. "Let's give us a look at different options as we go into (the) games. The pair that probably didn't see much of one another was David and Kimmo, so we'll see if we can utilize that as we go along in a game. But it's something we wanted to see."
Blackhawks vs. Ducks in regular season play
The Blackhawks beat the Anaheim Ducks in two of their three meetings this season:
Oct. 28 at United Center: Ducks 1, Blackhawks 0
Devante Smith-Pelly scored the game's only goal on a breakaway with 8:28 remaining and two seconds left on an Anaheim power play. John Gibson made 37 saves for the Ducks, and Scott Darling made 24 for the Hawks.
Nov. 28 at Honda Center: Blackhawks 4, Ducks 1
Brad Richards and Andrew Shaw gave the Hawks a 2-0 lead just 13:30 into the game, and Patrick Kane added goals in the second and third periods. This was the second of 8 straight wins by the Hawks, the team's longest win streak of the season.
Jan. 30 at Honda Center: Blackhawks 4, Ducks 1
Patrick Sharp racked up a season-high 4 assists, and Patrick Kane scored twice as the Hawks breezed to an easy victory. Ducks goalie Frederik Andersen had just a .900 save percentage in the 2 losses to the Hawks.
- John Dietz