Vegas Trip Gets Blackhawks Ready to Go

Filed under: Blackhawks

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- When the Blackhawks announced they would spend two days in Las Vegas between the Canadian portion of their current road trip and the California section, the Patrick Kane jokes started flying, especially when he told reporters he'd be celebrating his 22nd birthday there.

Kane, who has a knack for getting in trouble away from the ice, apparently behaved himself in Sin City. (It did take three days for those limo photos to surface last year, however, so you never know.) And Kane, often quick to make light of things, was serious when it came to the topic of Las Vegas on Tuesday after Chicago finished its practice at HP Pavilion.

"I do think when the organization does something like that, you have to be respectful," Kane said. "That's the way you want to represent the Blackhawks. And for us, it was great for us to go there: it was fun, but now we get going again."

Many Chicago players spoke about "team-building" during the detour to Las Vegas, and coach Joel Quenneville said that was one of the reasons for scheduling such a trip.

"You can tell just going around the guys that the trip was effective in that way," Quenneville said. "At the start of the year, we didn't get into situations where guys could get more comfortable with each other, more familiarity."

The Blackhawks have lots of new pieces and perhaps they didn't gel quite as much initially as expected. The defending Stanley Cup champs are 11-10-2 and in fourth place -- not in the conference, but in their own division. And their road trip so far sort of illustrates the Blackhawks' season: they beat Edmonton 5-0, lost 7-2 at Calgary and then beat a tough Vancouver team 7-1.

 

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Source: http://nhl.fanhouse.com/2010/11/23/vegas-trip-gets-blackhawks-ready-to-go/

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