Outside of fans in Detroit and Southern California, not many people were more interested in the outcome of the Red Wings-Ducks Western Conference semifinals series than the Blackhawks.
The Hawks, who advanced to the conference finals Monday night with their 7-5 victory over the Vancouver Canucks in Game 6, were able to sit back and relax Tuesday night to watch the sixth game of the series featuring their next opponent unfold.
For their part, the Hawks are trying to maintain an even keel and not get too excited with the thought of advancing, knowing their next foe will provide a tough test.
“We’ve beaten a lot of good teams in this league,” defenseman Duncan Keith said. “[But] we realize we haven’t accomplished anything yet. It’s nice to be in the final four, the conference finals, but we haven’t won anything.
“Right now we’re just focused on doing our job and what has made us successful — all the little details that everyone is doing to buy into the whole team concept, what we need to do against each team and against each team’s weaknesses. If we just focus on that, it’s more just doing our jobs and keeping it a reality more than thinking anything magical is going on.”
Future shock: Canucks coach Alain Vigneault pointed out the Hawks’ potentially strong future after Vancouver fell out of the playoffs with Monday’s defeat.
“If they could keep this team together in this cap era, the people in Chicago will have a very good team for a very long time,” Vigneault said.
He did not address his own team’s future, which could be a little murkier.
The Canucks have several off-season decisions to make, including the futures of free agents Daniel Sedin, Henrik Sedin and Mattias Ohlund.
Goaltender Roberto Luongo enters the final year in his contract and has expressed interest in playing where he feels the greatest chance exists to win the Stanley Cup.
Tuning in: Monday night’s Game 6 attracted big ratings on Comcast SportsNet. The contest delivered its highest Blackhawks rating ever with a 7.82 household rating attracting approximately 273,145 households for the entire game and had a 12.6 peak rating during the 10:30 p.m. quarter-hour (more than 440,000 households).
The final household average for all four CSN telecasts of the Blackhawks-Canucks series was a 5.27 and the final average for all 10 playoff telecasts on CSN was a 4.82 household rating.
The conference finals will air exclusively on Versus or WMAQ-Ch. 5.
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Tribune reporter Shannon Ryan contributed.
