The question was obviously coming, but Blackhawks coach Dirk Graham still didn’t want to hear it. He said he couldn’t understand the big deal about Eric Weinrich being scratched.
“The thing I think is strange about this situation is nobody asked me why Cam (Russell) was sitting out or Trent (Yawney) was sitting out,” he said. “I see it as the same thing.”
But it’s not. Weinrich played all 82 games last season, and 81 the year before that, and his removal from the lineup indicates Graham is disappointed with the 31-year-old defenseman. Just the fact that he sees Weinrich, Yawney and Russell as equals may say something.
“(Weinrich) is not playing as good as I think he can play,” Graham said. “Is he playing terrible? No. But his level of play has to be a lot higher.”
Graham apparently believes Weinrich and a few others will come around.
“For us to win, Eric Weinrich is going to be part of it, Eddie Olczyk is going to be part of it and Steve Dubinsky is going to be part of it,” he said.
But none of them were a part of it Monday night after being scratched. For Weinrich and Olczyk, it was the second game in a row they missed, making it harder and harder for Graham to hide his dissatisfaction with their play.
“We felt tonight this is our best team,” he said. “What you have done in the past doesn’t give you a free ticket today. There is no justification for me to switch the lineup if we’re winning.”
Fitzpatrick debuts: Graham watched Jeff Hackett play the first four games of the season, and decided to replace him with Mark Fitzpatrick Monday night. Those two things are completely unrelated.
Monday’s game would have been Hackett’s fourth in seven days, so it was as good a time as any to give him the night off. Hackett will have a four-day break between Saturday’s win over Dallas and Thursday’s game with San Jose.
So Fitzpatrick made his Hawks debut, three months after being acquired from Tampa Bay for defenseman Michal Sykora.
“We just decided it was time,” Graham said. “We felt (Hackett) needed a rest. We don’t have Fitzpatrick just to sit there.”
If Fitzpatrick felt rusty, he sure didn’t look it. He stopped 26 of 27 shots.
Cleary’s first: After Monday’s game, Dan Cleary held the puck from the first goal of his career and pondered what it meant.
“It was pretty cool,” he said. “Now that I look at the puck, it probably does (mean a lot.) At least I can say I scored one in this building, against this team.”
The building was the relatively new Molson Centre, hardly a hockey pantheon, but Cleary probably meant the city, not the building. He has now scored a point in each of the last two games.
Probert stitched up: Bob Probert got into a fight with Dave Morissette 2 minutes 47 seconds into the game, and he paid for it with a gash over his right eye that required several stitches.
When asked if he was aware Morisette is a lefty, Probert smiled and said no.
“It’s hard to keep track of all the guys now,” he said.
