Don’t expect Bolland to play Wednesday

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Dave Bolland is mostly out of the fog brought on by his concussion, but it’s unlikely the Blackhawks will have their pesky center in the lineup tonight for Game 1 against the Canucks.

“There’s some progress, but I still think there’s time to get everything back,” Bolland said Tuesday.

“I still feel a little haze. There’s still a little bit back there. Whenever I feel great and that my mind is back and my head is back, it’s when I’ll be out there.”

Bolland said he has never experienced anything like this in his career, calling it worse than the back surgery he had two seasons ago.

Bolland suffered a concussion on March 9 against Tampa Bay when he was elbowed in the head by Lightning defenseman Pavel Kubina.

“It (stinks) laying in bed waiting for things to go away,” Bolland said. “For three or four weeks there it was headaches and hazy and foggy. I couldn’t drive, couldn’t really do much. It was just sitting around my house doing nothing. Just to walk outside or a walk downtown was an adventure for me.”

Bolland started “snapping out of it” two Sundays ago and began skating last week.

“You do get pretty worried because you never know when you’re going to snap out it,” Bolland said. “I’d go to bed at three in the morning and couldn’t sleep, but I felt tired at 10. I’d wake up every morning just hoping I’d snap out of it. The doctors said one day you have it and the next day it’s totally gone. I’d be hoping that was the day.

“It is a drain to your body and a drain to your mind. It’s so depressing, you didn’t want to do anything. You just want to stay in and not doing anything. It was a real tough for me to go through. I can feel for guys like (Sidley) Crosby and guys who have it.”

Even though Bolland is skating he still must pass more NHL-mandated baseline testing before being cleared for contact.

“We’ll make some decisions this week,” Hawks coach Joel Quenneville said. “We’ll visit with it and do what’s best.”

Bolland has no hard feelings for Kubina, who did send a message of apology to the Hawks for the center.

“I know he didn’t mean to do it, to clip me like that,” Bolland said. “He’s not that kind of player. You wish things like that didn’t happen, but it’s part of the game.

“I think he might have tried to (call), but I stayed off my phone for a while. The doctors said don’t go near it or text message or all that so it doesn’t interfere with your head.”