The Chicago Blackhawks are off to their best start of a season ever in the BRHL2 with an impressive 8-1-0 record out of the gate, vaulting them to the top spot in the league.
No Stanley Cup Hangover
What makes the start even more remarkable is that they are doing so well so quickly after bowing out in six hard fought games to the Atlanta Thrashers in the Stanley Cup finals just a few short months ago.
"The boys are hungry, you can see it in their eyes," says head coach Dave Tippet.
"You can tell that they have something to prove not only to themselves, but to the rest of the league. Coming up short in the finals two years in a row just isn't sitting well with them."
Not So New, But Definitely Improved
One of the key factors to the Blackhawks early success has been the fact that the team has remained relatively unchanged over the off season, losing only veteran players Brian Gionta and Adrian Aucoin to free agency and forwards Antoine Vermette, Vaclav Prospal and Derek Brassard through trade.
"We're in a fortunate position that we have a solid core group of players and that we're in the position to be able to keep that core together," according to Chicago GM Dave Yee.
"But the playoffs showed us that we needed to address some depth concerns; we needed some more balanced depth both from a scoring and a defensive standpoint, especially down the middle. And we needed someone to help take some of the workload off of Craig (Anderson), who we felt that we relied on a little too heavily last season."
The new faces to Chicago's locker room include all-star two-way center Tomas Plekanec, scoring pivot Mikhail Grabovski, defensive stalwart Stephane Robidas, and most notably, veteran goaltender Jose Theodore who is off to a stellar start with a 6-1-0 record a save percentage of 0.943.
Challenges Ahead
Despite the quick start, the Blackhawks are well aware that a long season lies ahead of them and that anything can happen from now until the end of the season.
"It's a step in the right direction, but it's only a start," emphasized coach Tippet. "The playoffs are a long ways off, but that's our main goal."
Next up for the Hawks, Jerome Iginla and the equally red-hot Minnesota Wild come to the windy city in a battle of conference rivals - without all-star defenseman Mike Green, who is on the shelf for at least another week with a separated shoulder.
"We'll miss Mike back there for sure, but what we need to do is be mentally tough," says Tippet. "You'd like to be able to control every aspect of the game and sometimes you don't and you have to deal with that.
"As much as anything tonight, I want the team to be able to deal with the circumstances as they present themselves."
