Coming off a tie and two losses last week in which they scored a total of four goals, perhaps the last team the Blackhawks wanted to see entering the United Center was the Detroit Red Wings.
But one Hawk couldn’t wait for Sunday night’s game, couldn’t wait to experience the tension and excitement. And this time, Greg Johnson got to experience it from the Chicago angle.
“The heated rivalry between Chicago and Detroit you hear about, that I was a part of for so many years, to be on the other side of it definitely will be exciting,” said Johnson, who played his first three-plus seasons in the NHL with the Red Wings before getting traded to Pittsburgh Jan. 27.
The situation in Pittsburgh was much like that in Detroit for the 26-year-old center–too many centers vying for playing time. So Oct. 22, Johnson was sent packing again, this time to the Hawks in exchange for defenseman Tuomas Gronman.
He may have found a permanent home.
“I have a big responsibility to contribute every night, and that’s what I love,” said Johnson, who scored a second-period goal Sunday. “It’s great.”
It would have been greater if he could have exprienced what his buddies in Detroit did last June, hoisting the Stanley Cup, but Johnson was able to put a positive spin on it.
“I was definitely a little envious, but at the same time I was happy for so many guys that I have been through so much with,” he said. “To see them go through that, I was really excited for them. Hopefully I’ll get to experience that sometime on my own here.”
Staying home: Ethan Moreau won’t leave with his Hawks teammates on their six-game road trip Monday while he recovers from a broken knuckle on his right hand suffered in a fight with Toronto’s Jason Smith on Thursday. Brent Sutter, out with a separated right shoulder, also won’t make the first part of the trip, which takes the Hawks to Anaheim, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary and Ottawa. Both Moreau and Sutter could rejoin the club at some point during the trip.
Count me in: Despite reports that he’ll bypass playing for Russia in the Olympics in February–the first time NHL players will play in the Games–Hawks center Alex Zhamnov says he doesn’t know where that got started. Countrymen Slava Kozlov, Igor Larionov and Slava Fetisov of Detroit and Phoenix goalie Nikolai Khabibulin say they’ll turn down invitations to play in Nagano, Japan, but “not me,” said Zhamnov.
“I played in 1992 (winning a gold medal) and it was a big memory for me,” he said. “I’m looking forward to it.”
Successful surgery: Goalie Chris Terreri watched Sunday’s game with a huge cast on his left hand to immobilize the dislocated ring finger on which he had surgery Friday. Doctors took a piece of bone from his wrist during the one-hour surgery and used it to repair the finger, which he broke Tuesday making a glove save at Toronto.
“It hurt a lot more after surgery than it did when I broke it,” said Terreri, who is expected back in four to six weeks.
The freak injury occurred when a shot by the Leafs’ Wendel Clark dipped and Terreri, having lost sight of the puck in the poorly lit Maple Leaf Gardens, stabbed at it to make the save. In doing so, he jammed his finger into the ice.
