These are changing times in the National Hockey League and, for the time being, the Blackhawks are a step ahead of the times.
When the 1991-92 regular season ended, the Ottawa Senators were on the drawing board and the Hawks second in the Norris Division after winning 36 games.
This season, with 16 games left, the Hawks have moved up to first place and already have their 37th victory, a 4-2 triumph over Ottawa before a relatively sedate sellout crowd of 18,472 Sunday at the Stadium.
But if the hefty win column indicates preparedness for the playoffs, it’s news to Jeremy Roenick.
“I really couldn’t tell you where we were at this time last year or how we were playing,” replied the Hawks’ leading scorer.
“All I know is when the playoffs came, we were a great team.”
The expansion team from Ottawa is a far cry from the Pittsburgh Penguins, who swept away the Hawks in last season’s Stanley Cup finals. After 34 games on the road, the Senators have no victories or ties.
“You can’t give a team like that any energy by (it) getting off to a good start,” said Roenick. “Teams like that build on positive things.”
With the game 17 seconds old, Roenick practiced what he later preached. Steve Larmer, in his new role as a left wing, fed Roenick the puck across the rear boards and the feisty center scored from in front of the net.
Late in the period, the Hawks had their first power play of the game after Laurie Boschman held Brian Noonan, and again Roenick delivered. This time he tipped Steve Smith’s shoot from deep dead center past goalie Daniel Berthiaume for Roenick’s 36th goal of the season.
After going without a goal in the previous four games, Roenick bagged two in less than 20 minutes, providing the Hawks a 2-0 lead-even though they took only three shots in the first period.
“Those last four games I’ve had zero room,” said Roenick. “There were always one or two checkers on me. And, after the first period, it was the same in this game.”
Roenick’s power-play goal also was a slump-breaker for the team. Before it, the Hawks were 0 for 14 with a man advantage in ties Thursday night against Quebec and Friday night in New Jersey.
“We were a tired team, and Jeremy gave us some jump,” said coach Darryl Sutter.
Even though backup goalie Jimmy Waite has impressive statistics, Sutter decided to employ his main man, Ed Belfour, for the sixth straight game.
“I wanted to be darn sure we got this one,” explained Sutter. “If I had used Jimmy, there was a chance he might be rusty early.”
Belfour had an easy first period, stopping only five shots. Early in the second period, he found himself propped on a 3-0 lead, thanks to Christian Ruuttu’s deflection of Chris Chelios’ shot from the perimeter.
The lead proved to be insurmountable, although the Senators did mount a mild threat later in the period when Mark Lamb scored twice in 31 seconds.
The shutout spoiler came at 13:57 when Lamb went in alone against Belfour from the inner edge of the right circle, put a move on him and then shot the puck between his legs. Then Lamb went to his backhand to deflect Andy McBain’s shot into the net for his second goal of the game and seventh of the season.
Ten seconds later, the Hawks took retaliatory action. Troy Murray won a faceoff from Mark Freer in the right circle, getting the puck to Keith Brown at the point. Brown took a shot and Brent Sutter, who’d gone to the front of the net, deflected the puck between Berthiaume’s legs for Sutter’s first goal in 10 games.
In the third period, Ottawa, which hadn’t played since Thursday, accelerated its offense. But with 6 1/2 minutes left, Gord Dineen high-sticked Larmer, who was trying to leave the mouth of the Senators’ goal while the puck was heading up ice.
The stick caught Larmer between his eyes, drawing blood from the bridge of his nose and producing a four-minute penalty for Dineen.
“When we had to kill off that four-minute penalty at the end, it killed any chance we had of even tying,” lamented Ottawa coach Rick Bowness.
After Bowness pulled Berthiaume for an extra attacker, Belfour came out of the net to clear a puck and tried to fling it the length of the ice into the empty net. But ex-Hawk Mike Peluso swatted down the airborne puck before it could get out of the Chicago end.
