Chicago Blackhawks' Quenneville the master tactician
Jonathan Toews has been known to enjoy a good game of chess.
The Blackhawks captain has even gone so far as to play at least one former teammate online.
That being the case, it's no wonder Toews also immensely enjoys playing hockey for coach Joel Quenneville, the king of in-game and in-series adjustments - a king who has been known to crush weak-minded pawns such as the Anaheim Ducks in the Western Conference finals last year.
Now, after impressive victories in back-to-back games, it might not be too crazy to think that Quenneville already has declared "checkmate" on St. Louis, which has blown a 3-1 series deficit to the surging Hawks.
"It'll be a really interesting matchup in Game 7," said Blues coach Ken Hitchcock, "but it's been great hockey and it's going to be a great game again."
The decisive game is set for 7:30 p.m. Monday.
It's no accident that Quenneville is 15-1 in Game 6s since arriving in Chicago in 2009. His teams get better as a series progresses, thanks in large part to subtle - and sometimes not-so-subtle - changes made by the future Hall of Famer.
"When our system is not working anymore and they read it, he doesn't mind to switch something," Marian Hossa told me in December. "We come the next day and all of a sudden we win the hockey game because of that. …
"You don't see it lots when I've been with different teams, but he likes to do it. Guys understand it, and it's been working."
It sure has. Just ask the Blues, who haven't had an answer for the Hawks' newly configured line combinations deployed by Quenneville in Games 5 and 6.
Plenty of attention is focused on the fact that Toews and Patrick Kane are together on the top line, but look at what Quenneville has done on the left wing there - flipping a bit between Andrew Shaw and Richard Panik based on what he sees on a moment-to-moment basis.
"You have to make those adjustments on the fly," said Hawks radio analyst Troy Murray. "It's always a chess match. And Joel Quenneville is as good as anybody in the NHL, if not the best, in getting those opportunities together for the team to succeed in the long run."
Other tweaks have gone a long way in developing a solid four-line rotation, including:
• Teuvo Teravainen, who won a miserable 7 of 25 faceoffs in Games 1-4, was moved from third-line center to right wing on the second line with Artem Anisimov and Artemi Panarin.
• The third line now consists of Andrew Ladd, Marcus Kruger and Marian Hossa - a trio that has been extremely effective keeping an eye on Vladimir Tarasenko. They've also created numerous scoring chances and remind many of us of last year's effective third line of Patrick Sharp, Antoine Vermette and Teravainen.
• Dale Weise, Andrew Desjardins and Shaw formed an impressive fourth line in Game 6, with Weise scoring the game-winner on a perfect feed from Panarin.
"A lot of things make it monotonous when you're playing against the same guys shift in, shift out," Brent Seabrook said. "Joel over the years throughout our time together, he's done a good job of trying to find different matchups for our team to play together and against. …
"He sees stuff throughout a series and harps on it as the series goes on. I think it's big for our group."
The Hawks also seem to figure out how to beat an opposing team's goalie the longer a series progresses. Against Anaheim's Frederik Andersen last year, they scored 5 goals in Games 1-3 and 19 in Games 4-7. In this one, the Hawks scored 8 goals in the first four games against Brian Elliott, and they have 10 in the last two.
"We got a couple of goals on him and we felt even though we lost Game 4, that we started to get some scoring," Quenneville said. "And then the last two games, it was the progression we're looking for and we'll see (what happens next).
"I know that with all four lines the way they are now, we expect everybody to generate some offense and from the back end."
So, here we go. The Hawks are in their second Game 7 in their last three series - the other being a 5-3 victory over the Ducks in the 2015 Western Conference finals.
Seabrook said there may be a bit less nervousness for those who have been in this situation before, but that in the end …
"A Game 7's a Game 7," he said. "It's do or die every shift. You want to be out there playing as best you can, helping your team try and win. …
"Experience is going to be thrown out the window once that puck drops. So it's time to play, and both teams are going to be hungry trying to get a win."