Not easy for young Hawks to adjust to extreme ups and downs

The roller-coaster ride of emotions that occur daily in the Stanley Cup playoffs is something the younger Blackhawks have never experienced until now.

Even captain Jonathan Toews, who played big-time college hockey at the University of North Dakota and won 3 gold medals playing for Canada in international competition, says it has been an eye-opener.

"It feels like you have a world of experience already being a couple games into the second round," Toews said. "You learn a lot from every game. It's easy to get super ticked off and super negative after a loss and think of everything that's wrong with the world, but you just have to forget about that and learn from your losses and try to be as excited for the next game as you would after a win."

This is where playoff veterans such as Brian Campbell, Sammy Pahlsson, Martin Havlat and Andrew Ladd have been so valuable in the dressing room.

"The swings have been tremendous," Hawks coach Joel Quenneville said. "Our guys handled the first series extremely well and we've been in this series twice now. I think the guys have been very good about attention to detail and channeling the game plan in the proper ways. They've been very good about handling adversity or ... success."

Frequent fliers: It's off today on another four-and-a-half-hour flight to Vancouver for the Hawks, who had nearly as long a trip to Calgary twice in the first round.

It's such a travel grind in the Western Conference compared to the East, where those teams are all about an hour apart by air.

"You've got to take care of yourself, and rest is big," Hawks defenseman Brent Seabrook said. "We're having optional skates, and you have to take advantage of that, make sure you get your massages, things like that."

Playoff travel in the NHL hasn't been fair for years. When the Rangers won the Stanley Cup in 1994, they played the Islanders, Washington and New Jersey in the first three rounds before facing Vancouver in the Finals. Those were bus trips to Long Island and New Jersey.

Looking ahead: Are the Canucks under pressure to win now? Some Canadian writers are suggesting that with Daniel and Henrik Sedin set to become unrestricted free agents on July 1 and Roberto Luongo a UFA after next year.

While you figure there's no way the Canucks could let the Sedins go, there is speculation that Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke, the former Canucks GM, will make a huge off-season offer to the Sedins.