Quenneville wants a goalie to 'take charge' for Hawks

The auditioning for the Blackhawks' No. 1 goalie job continues Wednesday night with Antti Niemi getting the start against the Los Angeles Kings at the United Center.

Cristobal Huet started the last three games and went 2-1, but he was pulled in Sunday's 5-4 loss to Detroit.

"Antti gets a chance to get back in the net and we'll see how he responds," Hawks coach Joel Quenneville said Tuesday.

Quenneville repeated he wanted either Niemi or Huet to assert himself down the stretch here in the final 17 games to make the decision on a playoff starter easier.

"It's important that somebody establishes himself and takes charge in the net," Quenneville said. "Both guys can play. We're not blaming Huey (for) last game."

The Hawks have a heavy schedule coming up, including sets of back-to-back games this weekend against Philadelphia and Washington and next week against Anaheim and Los Angeles, with Quenneville implying both goalies likely would get some starts.

"We've got back-to-back games on the weekend, we've got a lot of tough opponents as well and we've got a condensed schedule, so they'll both see some time here," Quenneville said. "We're looking for both of them to take charge."

Asked directly if he thought too much was being made of the goaltending situation, Quenneville didn't say yes or no.

"Our goaltending had, I'm going to say, an ordinary start," Quenneville said. "I thought it had a really, really strong segment there and I think recently it has not been as strong as it was."

Attention to detail: Practice ran a bit longer than normal on Tuesday with the focus on playing better team defense and eliminating those second-period letdowns.

"The thing we're trying to stress going into games now is we want to play the same way; start and finish the same way," Joel Quenneville said. "That second-period lull when we either give away the momentum or give up quality chances or goals, we want to harder to play against start to finish."

The Hawks have been outscored 16-6 in the last six middle periods.

"A lot of it stems from turnovers," Quenneville said. "A lot of times we could be doing things with the puck and we don't always have to do a little bit extra.

"If we have more of a checking and a simple mentality in the second it can complement the pace we have in the first and third. We're trying to stress the winning in our league starts with defense."

Tough challenge: The Kings have proved to have staying power after their strong start, bringing a 39-22-5 record to the UC.

"They're big and fast, they work hard and play an organized game and are hard to play against," Joel Quenneville said. "They got a lot of weapons."