Blackhawks remind everyone why they’re NHL darlings

The day after longtime Blackhawks play-by-play man Pat Foley criticized the NHL for the late starts in the Chicago-St. Louis playoff series, Blackhawks president John McDonough called commissioner Gary Bettman to apologize.

Bettman told him the call wasn’t necessary. Bettman understood the comments came from one man, not the organization. He also noted to Chicago reporters that the Blackhawks had been “terrific partners. Ask them to host an outdoor game and they say ‘yes.’ Ask them to be the opponent (in an outdoor game) and they say ‘just tell us where to show up.'”

All of that is true of the league’s marquee franchise, but there are more reasons the league loves the Blackhawks. They’re a great team that plays a compelling style, has compelling stars (some with considerable warts) and regularly brings a brand of hockey to the big screen that the marketing-starved league desperately needs.

The Hawks’ first-round series against St. Louis is driving home that point once again and it runs in stark contrast to the teams from the nation’s other two top-3 markets.

With their backs against the wall, the Los Angeles Kings folded up shop at home and fell to the San Jose Sharks in five games on Friday. With their backs against the wall, the New York Rangers folded up shop and fell in five games to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday.

Faced with a 3-1 series deficit against arguably the better of the three opponents, Chicago scratched out an overtime win in Game 5 in St. Louis, then stormed back from a two-goal deficit after one period to beat the Blues 6-3 on Saturday at United Center to force Game 7 back in St. Louis on Monday.

Heart of a champion? You bet. The Blackhawks are once again co-authoring the NHL’s must-see series.

“It’s probably a lot calmer in here than most rooms,” forward Andrew Ladd told the Sun-Times. “We’ve got a lot of guys that have been around a while, and played in a lot of big games, and understand momentum shifts, and the fact that there still was 40 minutes left to be played. There’s a lot of confidence in here in what we can do.”

St. Louis has been terrific in this series. The Blues have more skill, more speed, better goaltending and better depth than any of the previous editions that have produced the franchise’s playoff calling card: one series win in the last 12 seasons.

The Blues may very well win this series in St. Louis and exorcise the same demons that Pittsburgh exorcised on Saturday against the Rangers, but it should be clear by now that the Blackhawks will not go quietly into that good night.

As we noted earlier in this series, Chicago lost 10 players off last year’s Stanley Cup-winning team. That’s 43 percent of the roster and that is a monumental hurdle to overcome.

The Blackhawks couldn’t do it in 2011 after losing the same number of players off their 2010 championship team. They fell in seven games to Vancouver, which advanced to the Cup Finals and probably would have won the Cup had it been healthy.

This Blackhawks team may also fall short. The Hawks’ blue line only runs three deep and there are depth issues up front despite GM Stan Bowman’s dizzying array of acquisitions at the trade deadline. That said, the Hawks have a wealth of experience to draw upon that the 2010 team did not.

Captain Jonathan Toews was brilliant in a do-or-die game on Saturday, and the Hawks got contributions from stars Patrick Kane, Marian Hossa, Artemi Panarin and Andrew Ladd.

This team will not die easily, and that is apparent in the fact that the Coyotes are still the only team in the Hawks’ Cup era (since 2010) to knock Chicago out of the playoffs in less than seven games.

The Blackhawks are 15-1 in Game 6s under coach Joel Quenneville now, and they’re 13-4 in elimination games with another one upcoming.

“Get down 3-1 and a lot of teams are going to panic,” said newcomer Dale Weise, who scored the game-winning goal Saturday. “Not this team.”

Like most successful teams, the Blackhawks have a sizeable following of haters. Like the Hawks’ fans, however, they keep coming back to watch. There’s a reason for that, and it was in full flower on Saturday at United Center.

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