Hawks fully aware tonight's game is no gimmie
The Vancouver Canucks seem to be a team in disarray right now.
The Blackhawks, on the other hand, seem to be hitting their stride.
They're up 3-1 in the Western Conference semifinals series. They're 3-0 in series-clinching games the past two years. And now they're back home, ready to play Game 5 in front of another sellout crowd at the United Center.
Pretty easy for them to be an overconfident bunch, huh?
Not if you listen to the players.
"We're a confident team, but we have that balance; I don't think we're cocky by any means," said Hawks forward Patrick Sharp. "I don't think we're planning too far ahead. We know what we have and how big the challenge is going to be.
"Closing out a series is always the toughest game to win."
"It always is," added Hawks captain Jonathan Toews. "It doesn't matter if you're down 3-0 or 3-1 or it's the seventh game of the series, you never want to lose that fourth game.
"We know that's the way they're going to be feeling and we expect they'll be coming out with their best performance."
He's No. 2: Vancouver goalie Roberto Luongo responded Saturday to Canucks coach Alain Vigneault's assessment that his gold-medal goalie has been outplayed by the Hawks' Antti Niemi thus far in the Western Conference semis.
"(Friday) night I thought maybe I could have been a bit better," Luongo told TSN. "The first three games I felt good."
Regardless, the Hawks appear to have gotten in the heads of Luongo and the Canucks again this postseason, and Vancouver realizes any chance for redemption starts and ends with their captain.
"Giving up 6 (goals) is not good enough, and (Luongo's) one of our best players and he needs to be our best player," said Canucks defenseman Shane O'Brien. "Everyone needs to play their best, and it starts with him and it works its way out. Every guy - all 20 guys - it doesn't matter who it is, you've got to have your best games from here on in."
Tranformers: How is it possible for the Hawks to look so bad in the series opener at the United Center and then bounce back and win three straight and be on the cusp of clinching the series tonight?
"We played a very bad Game 1," Jonathan Toews said. "We gave them credit and realized they deserved to win but at the same time realized there were so many things we didn't do as a team.
"I wouldn't say there was a switch (we hit), we just got back on the horse and started playing the way we had to to win. And as you can see it's worked out for us the last couple games."
He said it: Dustin Byfuglien on taking a couple of shots to the head from Alex Burrows in the Hawks' Game 4 victory: "It's part of the game. It's stupid on his part, but that's the way it goes."