The Blackhawks have seen it before: Sergei Krivokrasov playing with passion, scoring a big goal, flying around the ice.
They saw it again Saturday night in the Hawks’ 4-2 exhibition loss at Dallas and during Friday night’s 3-2 victory over Phoenix. Problem is, they haven’t seen it enough as he enters his second full season with the club.
Krivokrasov plans to change that.
“That’s the way I prepared to play this year, play consistent every night,” he said. “I want to play hard so I deserve to play a regular shift in the regular season. I want to prove to everybody that I can play a regular shift every day.”
The 23-year-old winger certainly had coach Craig Hartsburg’s attention against Phoenix, not that Hartsburg hadn’t seen Krivokrasov flash his brilliance before. He scored dramatic overtime goals against Colorado in each of the last two years in the playoffs.
Friday, he had a power-play goal among six shots and turned in a steady defensive performance. Saturday, he assisted on Bob Probert’s first goal of the preseason and added a power-play goal.
“Krivo, I thought, was the best player on the ice,” Hartsburg said Friday. “He worked his butt off, made some plays, worked hard in his own end. He’s just got to continue to do that. If he plays like that every night, he’s going to be a big player for us.”
Krivokrasov intends to be just that. All the talk of rookies moving into the lineup doesn’t have him looking over his shoulder. He has his eyes focused straight ahead on a successful season for himself and the Hawks.
“What I can control is just go work hard and do my best every night,” he said. “I know I have to play good defense first to play on this team.”
The Hawks played Saturday without Tony Amonte, Alex Zhamnov and Chris Chelios as they fell to 1-2. Greg Adams had a pair of goals for Dallas, and Joe Nieuwendyk added a goal and two assists.
The Hawks travel to St. Louis for a game Monday night, which will be on SportsChannel at 7:30 p.m.
No. 1: First-round draft pick Dan Cleary scored his first professional goal Friday when his shot from the side of the net went right through the skates of Coyotes goalie Scott Langkow.
“It was an aggressive play,” said Hartsburg. “You take it to the net, put it on the net, you don’t know what will happen.”
“It’s always good to get the first one out of the way,” said Cleary, 18. “You feel more relaxed out there when you have one.
“In Game 1, I was nervous. I was a lot more relaxed this game. I felt pretty good.”
One reason Cleary was more comfortable was that he got switched back to left wing from center. He also worked with linemates Tony Amonte and Alex Zhamnov for three days in practice.
