Blackhawks move Kane back to center

Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville seemed to give up on the Patrick-Kane-at-center experiment 12 games ago.

With Kane having tallied only 2 goals in those last dozen games, Quenneville is trying the experiement again. Kane is expected to center a second line that includes Patrick Sharp and the red-hot Viktor Stalberg during tomorrow night's game against Detroit. Kane actually got some shifts at center late last night against the Kings, according to the Sun-Times Adam Jahns.

There have been a few post-Christmas changes for the Hawks. The most obvious is that Corey Crawfod seems to be entrenched again as starting goalie. He's been pretty good, though not definitively better than Ray Emery had been playing. I thought Crawford's best game of the season may have been last night; unfortunately it game in a 2-0 loss to the Kings where his teammates were badly outplayed for one of just a few times all season.

Young Brandon Pirri was up; now he's been sent back down and Jimmy Hayes has been called up from Rockford. He'll skate on the fourth line, it seems, which means he won't hurt a Hossa/Sharp line the way I thought Pirri did last night. Oh, and the concussed Daniel Carcillo will play tomorrow night, which (hopefully) means he'll take over for John Scott in the fighting and untimely penalty roles.