Blackhawks make it six straight
For the Blackhawks, the wake-up call came several weeks ago.
“You're looking at yourself in 11th or 12th place and teams in 13th and 14th are right behind you and you start second-guessing yourself,” Hawks winger Patrick Kane said.
“That's probably the time we decided to look around the room at ourselves and say enough is enough here, let's bear down here and try to focus on these last 30-35 games.”
Whatever happened, the Hawks have turned around their season at the most important time with Wednesday's 6-4 victory over the Calgary Flames at the United Center their sixth in a row.
It vaulted the Hawks into fourth place in the Western Conference. They've moved up seven spots in less than two weeks.
“A couple weeks ago we're saying let's just get in the playoffs and now you're saying you can be in fourth place,” Kane said. “We're trying to take it one game at a time and not really worrying about where we end up, but you could say fourth would be the ideal situation, especially seeing where Detroit is right now.”
A fourth-place finish would give the Hawks home ice in the first rounds of the playoffs. The only way they could move into the top three in the West would be if they catch the Detroit Red Wings and win the Central Division, which isn't likely with 18 games to play.
Jonathan Toews continued his torrid streak with 2 more goals, extending his points scoring streak to seven games (6 goals, 7 assists). In 14 games since the all-star break, Toews has 8 goals and 15 assists while the Hawks have gone 9-3-2.
“It's easy to notice a player when the puck's going in when he's getting his name on the score sheet,” Toews said. “As a line (with Patrick Sharp and Kane), we've been scoring a lot and I think I owe a lot to those two guys.”
Toews picked up in March where he left off in February, when he was the NHL's player of the month.
Following the game the sellout crowd chanted “MVP” for Toews.
“Player of the month for February was well deserved,” Hawks coach Joel Quenneville said. “He's been a monster and been great for us for a number of games.
“When he plays like that you get a real appreciation for how lucky we are as an organization and a team because he brings so many weapons to your team. Right now he's firing on so many cylinders. He's to the point where he can control a lot of games and dominate games as well.”
Michael Frolik had a goal and 2 assists in his best game since coming to the Hawks. The goal was Frolik's first goal in 10 games with his new team and first in 33 dating back to mid-December, when he still was with the Florida Panthers.
“We won and I helped the team do that, and I liked that,” Frolik said.
Again it got scary late when the Flames' Rene Bourque and Jarome Iginla scored 2 quick goals early in the third period to turn a 4-1 deficit into a 1-goal game, but Dave Bolland answered with a huge goal with 9:11 to play.
Bourque scored again with 3:54 left, but the Hawks held on and got an empty-net goal from Marian Hossa.
“We stopped playing a little bit in the third period,” Frolik said.
“We can blame ourselves, knowing that we can be better in that area,” Quenneville said. “We need to get better as we progress in games. What happened today in the third period can't happen.”