Ottawa Senators defenseman Norm Maciver is on a short list of blue-line candidates the Blackhawks are investigating for a possible deal before the March 20 trade deadline.
The Hawks like the fact that Maciver, the Senators’ leading scorer with 47 points, could help them on the power play. The former Edmonton player moves the puck well, and five of his 13 goals this season have come on the power play.
Hawks General Manager Bob Pulford isn’t identifying the names he has under consideration, but acknowledges he is searching “for a No. 5 defenseman, and we have depth at forward to trade. We’d like to find a guy we can use on the power play. I don’t see any deal getting done until closer to the deadline.”
Mike Hudson could interest the Senators. The 26-year-old center would be a strong addition to developing Ottawa. The Senators might take winger Rob Brown to boost their woeful offense. He showed when he was with Pittsburgh he can score in bunches and would be allotted the ice time to do so with the Senators.
A part-timer: Pulford said he and coach Darryl Sutter pondered elevating Vladislav Tretiak to a full-time goaltending coach. But they decided against it and Tretiak returned to Moscow last week after helping Ed Belfour and Jimmy Waite in practices for a little more than a week.
Belfour applauded the boost he received from Tretiak and wondered why he couldn’t be here all the time. But Pulford and Sutter agreed there was only benefit to Tretiak’s teaching during periods when the Hawks don’t play a lot of games.
“It wouldn’t work as well if he was here all the time,” Pulford said. “That would be too much. The timing has to be right and he’ll continue to come in periodically.”
To the top: The Hawks rushed to first in the NHL in penalty killing after stopping eight of nine Detroit power plays Saturday. Their 84.2 percentage moved them in front of second-place Buffalo. The Norris Division had three teams in the top five in penalty killing. Minnesota was fourth and St. Louis fifth.
Big money: After rumors just weeks ago that St. Louis was thinking of not re-signing Brett Hull, now comes word the big boomer is close to a six-year, $15 million contract with the Blues. This package also would give Hull $5 million more deferred over 20 or 30 years.
Hawks twins: Brent Sutter said that when center Troy Murray walked into the locker room after the recent trade with Winnipeg, the two Hawks looked at each other and smiled.
“After playing against each other since we were 15,” Sutter said, “we were finally going to get the chance to play together. We are basically the same player and always have been. It’s going to make it easier for us to have two guys thinking alike on the same team.”
