With just over a month remaining before the trade deadline, Blackhawks General Manager Bob Pulford sounded his first warning tone.
“I’m trying to get something done, but it’s possible that nothing is going to happen,” he said.
While some think the Hawks have to make some player moves to get stronger for the playoffs, Pulford may be satisfied to call up prospects Jeff Shantz, Sergei Krivokrasov and Steve Dubinsky, play them on a line together and settle for that late-season adjustment.
“There are certain things I’m trying to do,” Pulford said. “Whether I can do them, I don’t know.”
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Too good: The Hawks filed a waiver claim for Quebec’s Martin Gelinas last month. But teams have a priority in picking waived players based on their record last season. The worst team goes first and so on.
So that’s how Vancouver, with 101 points to the Hawks’ 106, managed to land Gelinas instead of Chicago. The winger had five goals in his first six games as a Canuck before playing the Hawks Wednesday night.
“It’s incredible to me that other teams didn’t take him before Vancouver,” coach Darryl Sutter said. “I thought some expansion team would get him.”
The Hawks were prepared to select Gelinas in the 1988 draft with their eighth pick overall. But Los Angeles took him seventh and the Hawks were forced to take Jeremy Roenick, a far superior player to Gelinas.
Sleepovers: The Hawks may have a boring style on occasion, but Sutter sees more frustrating play out of other teams than Chicago. “There are nights I feel like taking a sleeping bag to the bench, the way some of these teams play” he said. “I’d rather take some chances and make sure everybody’s shoulder pads get used than play that 1-2-2 or whatever you want to call it. We’re not a team that sets up the neutral-zone trap and puts the other team to sleep.”