Although he just finished his rookie season, Eric Daze is a playoff veteran. He played all 16 playoff games with the Blackhawks last season after playing in only four regular-season games.
“I think I learned a lot about the playoffs last year,” he said. “I’m still learning, but I had a taste of it and I want to play a bigger role than I did last year.”
He certainly did Wednesday night, playing on the No. 1 line and scoring his first playoff goal in the third period on a nice feed to the slot by Gary Suter.
“It was kind of nice to get that behind me,” said Daze. “I’m playing with two good players (Jeremy Roenick and Tony Amonte) and I want to get some points offensively, but I want to play very well defensively, too, like last year.”
Playoff pup: “I’m pumped,” said defenseman Enrico Ciccone about his first playoff appearance. “There’s a difference discipline-wise in these games and that’s what I’ve been working on the last couple of games.
“I talked to Hartsie (coach Craig Hartsburg) and he said `be careful’ and I think I proved I could do it. This is a good team and I can’t come in and jeopardize their chance to go all the way. I might look psycho out there, but I still can think.”
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Tough break: The Blackhawks were expecting Eric LeCompte to compete hard for a job next season, but the 21-year-old winger will miss at least the first month of next season with torn knee ligaments.
LeCompte played for Indianapolis in the IHL this season and tore the ACL in his right knee in the last game against Cincinnati. “There were only six minutes left in the game,” he said.
The 6-foot-4-inch, 190-pound LeCompte said he will undergo surgery next week.
Oh, no: The Hawks grimaced when they saw that Bill McCreary had been assigned to referee the opener against Calgary. McCreary had given Hawk opponents an 88-58 advantage in power plays over the last three years.
But on Wednesday night, McCreary was anything but biased against the Hawks. He put them on the power play five times and penalized them only four times on a night the Hawks refused to be goaded into scuffles by the outmanned Flames.
“If we keep playing like that, we’ll probably earn the respect of the referees, and that will help,” Chris Chelios said.