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After Wednesday night’s last-minute victory over the Colorado Avalanche, the Chicago Blackhawks have now gone 24 games to start the 2013 NHL season without a regulation loss. That’s unprecedented, and now they’re the second team in NHL history to go 30 games overall without a loss in regulation.
Like any good head coach, however, Joel Quenneville is taking it one game at a time.Joel Quenneville joined the Dan Patrick Show to discuss his team’s unbelievable streak, noting that the team doesn’t discuss it very often, and to touch on superstitions, close calls along the way and Stanley Cup expectations.
On not expecting to make a run like this:
“Well we liked our team, and going into this season, with being off for so long, we were kind of curious to see how we’d start the season. We had some guys playing over in Europe, we had some guys that were skating here in Chicago. But the start was much better than anybody anticipated. And we had a real tough schedule — 10 out of 12 on the road — and we had a great start to the season. Guys bonded very quickly and the chemistry was there. Very familiar with the team because we’re basically the same team as last year, but the guys jelled right from the get-go here and they’ve been playing great hockey.”
On if they discuss the streak:
“We might laugh about it a little bit, having fun with it. It certainly has been a lot of fun. I don’t like mentioning it with the team. We just go on about it, going into that game trying to win the game. And we’ve got a lot of internal competition for ice time. We want to make sure that each other’s lines are going to be contributing to our team. … I think the guys might be talking about it, but in our meetings we just try to win that game.”
On if he and the team are superstitious:
“I guess so. As a player I certainly was. As a coach I try to stay away from that stuff because it’s tough to get through the day. But I think there’s a lot of superstitions that are going on in the room with the guys, but my superstition might be that I’m not really talking too much about it.”
On close calls during the streak:
“We’ve been pretty fortunate in some games. And when you look at how many one-goal games we found a way to get points in, we’re pretty happy about.”
On if they expect to be in the Stanley Cup Finals:
“There’s a lot of work to be done before we get there, Dan. We’d like to think that we got the team that’s capable of winning a championship but we’ll go on looking in the short term and taking care of our business here during the regular season.”
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