Nov. 25--VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Having reached the midway point of a grueling six-game road trip, the Blackhawks had a chance to pause, rest and assess their overall play one quarter into the season.
The Hawks traveled to Denver on Monday where they will remain until they take on the Avalanche on Wednesday night at the Pepsi Center. That will be game No. 22 of the 82-game regular-season schedule and thus far the Hawks have posted a 12-8-1 record that is indicative of their roller-coaster season. With 25 points, they are in third place in the Central Division.
They have gone 2-1-0 on the trip, including a 4-1 loss to the Canucks on Sunday night that was a reflection of a tired hockey team playing its third game in four nights.
"It's been up and down," Hawks winger Patrick Kane said of the season. "I think we have a lot better to give on certain nights. You can see that we're close to kind of playing the way we want. (Sunday night) wasn't good enough, but there have been games and stretches where we've played some pretty good hockey."
The Hawks shot out of the gate with four wins in five games and with at least one point in each, but the feeling at the time was that they weren't hitting on all cylinders. That became apparent with losses in five of their next seven before they turned things around, winning six of their last nine.
"(We had a) tough start -- even though we might have won some games early on, we didn't play very well," coach Joel Quenneville said. "The last third of the first part was the way we have to play and we have to get better off of these levels."
With a Western Conference-best plus-19 goals differential, the Hawks have typically gotten the job done at both ends of the ice. The power play remains a work in progress with a 19.8 percent success rate, which ranks 13th in the NHL, while the penalty kill has been top-notch, ranking first at 90.3 percent.
"We're making improvements," captain Jonathan Toews said. "We're getting better as we go along. We've had a good road trip until (Sunday night) so we have to find a way to rest up and make sure we're really on top of our game and everyone is playing with energy in a few days here. We have to get back on the right page."
So what has ailed the Hawks at times? Quenneville has shuffled the forwards lines ad nauseam as he searches for the right combinations. A knee injury that has shelved winger Patrick Sharp for the last eight games hasn't helped, but a slow start by newcomer Brad Richards and recent scoring slumps by Kane and Marian Hossa of seven and nine games, respectively, did the most damage.
With Richards now playing at a higher level and Kane and Hossa back to their scoring ways -- along with Sharp closing in on a return in the next week or so -- the Hawks believe they are ready to raise their collective game.
"We feel we can get to another level," Kane said. "We've shown it in spurts. We just have to have that consistency level be a little bit better."
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