Chicago Blackhawks: Five Reasons They Still Can Eliminate Nashville

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2. Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better

The Predators can into Chicago and earned big wins at the United Center in Games One and Two. But the Blackhawks are positioned as the top team in the Western Conference for a reason, and they must credit their ability to win away from home to that standing.

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This season, the Blackhawks were able to rack up 24 wins on the road this season and tie their franchise record for wins away from home ice. While not ideal, Chicago knows in the back of their mind that they can get it done on the road as well as any team in the league. If the Predators can take two on the road, so can the Blackhawks and make the opening series a Best-Of-Three situation heading back to Chicago and regaining their home-ice advantage in the series.

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Flip The Switch

Lastly, it’s the notion that we all have heard before about this Blackhawks group of players: They know when and how to “flip the switch,” so to say.

The Hawks are 31-34 (.477) in Games 1-3 and 45-16 (.738) in Games 4-7 of a playoff series under Joel Quenneville.
— Mark Potash (@MarkPotash) April 16, 2017

This stat will always get me. The Blackhawks are notorious under the Quenneville regime to start slower when opening a series. Maybe they like making the fans sweat it out more, who knows?

But Chicago, led by their multi-Stanley Cup winning core of Seabrook, Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Duncan Kieth, Corey Crawford, Johnny Oduya, Niklas Hjalmarsson, Marian Hossa, and Marcus Kruger have plenty of playoff experience to draw from and after an early exit last spring from the Stanley Cup Playoffs, should have as fresh of hockey legs as they have had in years. We’re all waiting on the switch to be flipped, Game Three would be a good place to flip it.

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