Before the season, Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville talked about pairing Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews on the same line. But when the season began, Quenneville did not pull the trigger.
Instead, Toews played with a rotating cast on the top line while Kane stayed with his prolific linemates, Artem Anisimov and Artemi Panarin.
After Toews got off to a slow scoring start, Quenneville made the move for the last two games, and it had some unforeseen consequences.
Toews scored his first goal of the season Sunday against the Kings _ albeit on the power play without Kane on the ice _ while the new second line Quenneville assembled has been the most productive since the switch.
Quenneville slid Marian Hossa into Kane's spot on the right wing, and while Hossa and Kane are different types of players, Hossa has meshed well with Anisimov and Panarin.
They had a memorable sequence in Sunday's 3-0 victory that involved Hossa winning a board battle, running a give-and-go with Panarin and then hitting Anisimov on the doorstep with a perfect pass for Anisimov's sixth goal of the season.
"It's tough to fill (Kane's) shoes with Panarin," Hossa said. "But the good thing is right now we've got a little more balance on the first two lines. So I just try to keep it going, and hopefully we can keep winning."
It has helped that Anisimov is playing perhaps his best stretch of hockey since joining the Hawks before last season. His six goals were tied for the league lead through Sunday with teammate Richard Panik and six others, and he has scored a point in seven consecutive games, including the overtime winner Friday against the Devils.
"He's always in the right spot. Such a smart player," Hossa said. "He's got the skill, he's got the size, he's got the strength. But he plays the game really smart."
Kane said an example of that is Anisimov's goal Sunday, which came after some toggling with Kings goaltender Peter Budaj.
"The puck hits his stick, it kind of bounces off the goalie and he still has the presence of mind to pull it back and lift it up over the pad," Kane said. "Most guys in the league would just try to stuff it in under the pad and hope it goes in."
Quenneville does not seem in a rush to break up the new lines. The top line of Toews, Kane and Panik has had positive possession numbers through two games and has been generating plenty of shots.
"It seems like old habit with Kaner," Toews said. "(Panik) and I are still getting comfortable playing the way we want to play. He's the type of guy where he has so much skill that he just needs one bounce in a game and he's going to make no mistakes just because of his flat-out ability."
The overused word when it comes to the Hawks' four-line rotation is balance. But for now it seems they have found equilibrium.
"(Our line) was getting chances on most shifts we were out there," Kane said. "The balance is really good right now. And we've won two in a row, and that's the most important thing. It looks like these lines could be pretty productive going forward."
