Morning Chirps: Crevier is a league leader, former Blackhawk gets traded again

The Chicago Blackhawks will get a well-deserved day off today after three games in the last four days. They haven’t played poorly out of the three-week Olympic break, and they finally picked up a win yesterday in Salt Lake City. They will be back in action tomorrow night with the final game of this four-game road trip against Jonathan Toews and the Winnipeg Jets.

Blackhawks Chirps

• The Blackhawks had a chance to win their first two games out of the break in Nashville and Colorado, but couldn’t get a second goal. They used a complete team effort to finally get that second goal, then a third and fourth in a 4-0 victory over the Utah Mammoth.

• There were some happy faces in the Blackhawks locker room after Nick Foligno scored his 250th NHL goal and Arvid Soderblom recorded his first career shutout.

• During Saturday’s loss, Louis Crevier blasted a 102.83 mph slap shot. It was his fourth shot of over 100 mph this season, which leads all NHL players.

• On this date in 1966, Bobby scored the game-winning goal in a 5-4 victory of the Detroit Red Wings to become the first player in NHL history to have two 50-goal seasons.

• In 2010, after playing 48 American Hockey League games with the Chicago Wolves, Blackhawks legend Chris Chelios signed with the Atlanta Thrashers. He played the final seven games of his Hall of Fame career with the Thrashers before retiring.

• Blackhawks Birthday Roll Call, March 2: Max Domi and Alex Nylander.

NHL Chirps

• The Los Angeles Kings fired head coach Jim Hiller on Sunday and named D.J. Smith as the interim head coach for the rest of the season. The move came with the Kings only three points out of a wild card spot in the Western Conference. Many felt this move should have been made after their collapse against the Edmonton Oilers in last year’s playoffs. Hiller is the second head coach to lose his job this season.

"At this point in the season, we believe a change in leadership is necessary to give our group the best opportunity to reach its potential and compete at the level we expect. These decisions are never made lightly, but our responsibility is to position this team for success now and moving forward."

Kings general manager Ken Holland

• Sunday was a busy day on the waiver wire as the Oilers waived Andrew Mangiapane and former Blackhawk Alec Regula. The St. Louis Blues waived veteran forward Robby Fabri, while the Florida Panthers waived Luke Kunin.

• Former Blackhawks forward Boris Katchouk is on the move again. He was traded by the Minnesota Wild to the Philadelphia Flyers for defenseman Roman Schmidt in a swap of former Tampa Bay Lightning draft picks. This is the second time this duo has been traded this season, as they both started the season with the Lightning organization.

• There is no need to have a presentation for the Calder Trophy after the season; just go ahead and give it to New York Islanders defenseman Matthew Schaefer. The teenaged phenome scored two more goals last night in a come-from-behind win over the Panthers. He also recorded an assist to become the third-youngest defenseman in NHL history to have a three-point game. Only Craig Wolanin and Doug Bodger were younger when they had their three-point nights.

• NHL Birthday Roll Call, March 2: Bill Quackenbush, Claude Larose, Eddie Johnstone, Darren Turcotte, Roman Cechmanek, Tomas Kaberle, Henrik Lundqvist, Ryan Shannon, Jay McClement, Jonathan Ericsson, Michael Hutchinson, Jacob Josefson, Charlie Coyle, Hayden Hodgson, and Ville Heinola.