Sport-scan daily brief

Kelley, who traveled as far as Sochi, Russia, for the Under-18 Championships to scout, said the team has 70 to 75 players on its draft board and then has a region list of other players. As usual, the main focus will be in the middle and back end.

"You like defensemen and you like centers but we're not being held to it," Kelley said.

"In other years we've looked, if all things were equal, to fill out our depth chart. This year, we think our depth chart right down through (AHL) Rockford and unsigned draft picks is varied."

• A source said progress is being made in talks on a new contract for unrestricted free-agent winger Bryan Bickell.

ckuc@tribune.com

Twitter @ChrisKuc

2013 NHL Draft

Sunday at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J.

All seven rounds beginning at 2 p.m.

TV: NBC Sports Network, 2-7 p.m.; NHL Network, 7 p.m.-completion.

Blackhawks' selections

Round 1: No. 30

Round 4: No. 121

Round 5: No. 151

Round 6: No. 181

Round 7: No. 211

Note: Traded second- and third-round picks for defenseman Johnny Oduya.

Chicago Tribune LOADED: 06.30.2013

682967 Chicago Blackhawks

Hawks' Saad lands spot on All-Rookie Team

Tribune report

12:14 PM CDT, June 29, 2013

Given that he was a finalist for the Calder Memorial Trophy, it's no surprise that Chicago Blackhawks forward Brandon Saad was named Saturday to the 2012-13 NHL All-Rookie Team.

Saad, 20,was joined by fellow forwards Brendan Gallagher of the Montreal Canadiens and Calder winner Jonathan Huberdeau of the Florida Panthers, goaltender Jake Allen of the St. Louis Blues and defensemen Jonas Brodin of the Minnesota Wild and Justin Schultz of the Edmonton Oilers.

Saad led all rookies with a +17 rating, including a +12 rating on the road, and was fifth among rookies in each of the three major scoring categories: goals (10), assists (17) and points (27).

Chicago Tribune LOADED: 06.30.2013

682968 Chicago Blackhawks

In concert: the Stanley Cup

Tribune report

11:56 AM CDT, June 29, 2013

The Stanley Cup will be busy in the hands of the Chicago Blackhawks this summer, and the venerable NHL chalice apparently can count on concerts being a staple of its social calendar.

Fresh off its front-and-center appearance at the Hawks' victory rally in Grant Park, the Cup made its way to Tinley Park via winger Daniel Carcillo for the Rush concert at the First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre on Friday night.

Carcillo took the stage during a break in the show and hoisted the Cup while surrounded by band members, drawing a roar from the crowd.

On Saturday night, the Cup could be in for some changes in latitudes and attitudes: During his appearance on "The Late Show with David Letterman," winger Patrick Kane hinted that he and the Cup would make an appearance at the Jimmy Buffett concert at the Charter One Pavilion at Chicago's Northerly Island.

Kane and the Cup attended a Buffett concert after the 2010 championship, to the delight of Parrot Heads everywhere.

Chicago Tribune LOADED: 06.30.2013

682969 Chicago Blackhawks

Blackhawks: 17 seconds to immortality

With bang-bang precision as precious seconds ticked away, Bickell and Bolland bring Cup back to Chicago

By Steve Rosenbloom, Chicago Tribune reporter

10:12 PM CDT, June 29, 2013

Get to overtime.

That's why Dave Bolland was on the ice. The Blackhawks' fiercest checking center, along with fellow pests Marcus Kruger and Michael Frolik, backed by shot-blocking defensemen Niklas Hjalmarsson and Johnny Oduya, led a unit tasked with checking the Bruins' big line of David Krejci, Milan Lucic and Nathan Horton.

Their job: Keep things where they were.

Where things were in the final chaotic minutes of Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final was, most improbably, tied 2-2.

The Hawks stars had done their thing with 76 seconds remaining, keeping alive the chance to win the Cup on Monday night in Boston. The Hawks entered Game 6 leading three games to two. They had a Game 7 in the United Center to fall back on — and sure, home teams had won at nearly a 70 percent clip in these playoffs — but who wants to rely on what's often a coin flip's chance in a game as random as hockey?

So, the Hawks had tied it and they had momentum. Now they had checkers on the ice to check. All Bolland and his group had to do was make sure the game got to overtime.

Instead, Bolland would make history, 17 seconds later.

The Hawks would become champions, 58.3 seconds later.

"It's the kind of thing you dream about as a kid growing up in Canada," Bolland said after it was over.

The shock and awe will endure forever.

Desperate measure

Corey Crawford was on the bench.

The goalie who had been the Hawks' best player throughout this alternately exhilarating and excruciating postseason could help his team only by leaving the ice.

Down 2-1 in the dying minutes, the Hawks replaced Crawford with an extra skater in a desperate attempt to get even. It is a standard move for the trailing team. Abandon the net to create a 6-on-5 power play, even if the Hawks' power play in the Stanley Cup Final was something like 1-for-mommy-make-it-stop to that point.

As Crawford skated to the bench with about 90 seconds to go, Patrick Kane weaved through center, splitting the indecisive pair of Lucic and Horton.

Crossing the blue line, Kane faced troubled Bruins defenseman Dennis Seidenberg in the left circle and, despite a hook from backchecking center Krejci, Kane unleashed a shot goalie Tuukka Rask directed to the left corner.

Seidenberg moved to backhand the puck up the boards and out of the Bruins' zone, but Kane — the All-Star winger who had been anonymous for the first three games of the finals while enduring some criticism that he lacked the will to go into traffic in tough areas to make plays — stood strong along the wall and slowed the attempted clear.

Krejci, whose line had done considerable damage to the Hawks in the series, homed in on the puck and went to bank it out.

But no.

Keith had played phenomenally in this potential clinching game, up until he lost the puck behind his net to create the Bruins' go-ahead goal with less than eight minutes remaining. Now would be a good time to make up for it. Keith saucered a nifty pass to Toews, who had peeled off the play toward the goal line on Rask's right.

Understand, Kane-to-Keith-to-Toews took less time than it took for you to read this sentence. Backhand, forehand, tape-to-tape, all in a tight area, all in the tightest of situations the way only world class players can.

By now, Michal Handzus had darted to the top of the crease. Hawks coach Joel Quenneville tapped Handzus as the extra attacker despite a fractured wrist and torn MCL, not that it would slow him taking the Cup from the captain after the game.

Also by now, Bryan Bickell had gone to his familiar spot at the far side of the net, the spot where toothless grins are shared with the world.

(Keeping up? Got six skaters here folks, including Brent Seabrook. OK, back to it.)

As Toews blew toward the net, Handzus occupied Zdeno Chara, the Bruins defenseman who had so scared the Hawks earlier in the series. Now, though, there was no sympathy for the devil.

"In the first couple of games we were giving him a little bit too much respect by trying to keep the puck away from him," Toews had said of Chara. "He's not a guy we should be afraid of."

Toews kept his head up — the head that Bruins defenseman Johnny Boychuk nearly decapitated and cost the Hawks center the third period of Game 5 — and gingerly flicked the puck to Bickell, who stood open, inexplicably unchecked by the wide and powerful Lucic.

The vexing Rask anticipated a pass from Toews and began to butterfly in hopes of covering the back side and everything low.

Nice try. But sorry. Rask isn't that good, which is where we came in with this guy. Rask was about to be stung for as many goals in 17 seconds as he was in four games the previous series.

Bickell began the final without one leg. That's a problem for a skater. Bickell had sprained an MCL (or, as the NHL prefers, lower body ligament) so badly that the Hawks weren't sure they would get one shift out of him in the biggest series of the postseason.

No matter. This is hockey. You breathe, you play. And so, Bickell swung his solid frame to the right and planted his left-handed blade on the ice into perfect one-timing position.

Five-hole. Two-all. One minute, 16 seconds to overtime.

Bickell, the free-agent winger who will be paid a most handsome price for his services, had hit paydirt again, his ninth goal in the playoffs, as many as he had through the regular season.

"Whoever is shooting the puck, we feel as a team that we have the confidence that it's going to go in at some point," Toews said. "So we'll keep shooting the puck."

A call never made

Claude Julien should have called timeout.

His valiant team dominated most of a must-win game. The Bruins fought on their home ice like the former champions they were to earn a Game 7 on the road, like they had done just two years earlier when they captured hockey's holy grail.

But that was against Vancouver.

The Hawks are not the Canucks.

Julien had to know that. He should have called his timeout.

Julien was dealing with a tired team that just had added frustration to a list of ailments that included a fractured rib, a punctured lung, a separated shoulder and torn cartilage — and that was just Patrice Bergeron.

Most notably, that was precisely Bergeron.

The Bruins center, who finished second to Toews in the Selke Trophy balloting for the NHL's top defensive forward, loomed as the top faceoff man in the series. The Bruins needed Bergeron because they needed the puck because they needed to get to overtime because they needed to get over what Bickell had just done to them.

"We can go in to overtime, but definitely a tough goal late in the game like that," Bergeron said after the game. "I guess, regroup and go back in to overtime and get it. But that second goal definitely hurt us a bit and maybe took away our focus at the wrong time."

Bergeron, who had gone to an emergency room in Chicago during Game 5 and would check into a Boston hospital again after Game 6, was unavailable. The fatigued Krejci line — the one that just had blown defensive assignments and surrendered the tying goal — would be pressed back into service.

Yes, Julien desperately needed to take his timeout.

He wouldn't do it.

'What an ending'

Hjalmarsson is fearless. He will use any part of his body to block a shot and probably has.

This time, though, the Swedish defenseman — the one the Hawks chose to pay instead of Cup-winning goalie Antti Niemi after the 2010 season — showed some soft hands.

The puck skittered along the right boards in the neutral zone. Seventy seconds remained.

The ice in Boston isn't much better than the ice in Chicago, especially in June when all the hockey equipment is supposed to be put away for the summer. Kane would tell David Letterman on national television it was maybe the worse ice he has played on. Ever.

But as Frolik said before Game 6, after giving it a go at the morning skate: "The ice wasn't great, but it's the same for both teams. Hopefully it gets a little better tonight."

It hadn't, not on a day when the high in Boston was 95 degrees. But that's what happens when you start the playoffs late after a lockout delays the start of a truncated, 48-game sprint to salvage a season.

But Frolik and his linemates hadn't taken a shift for five or six minutes. Even on bad ice, they had good legs.

And so now the puck is bouncing along the boards after Ference chipped it out of his zone.

Hjalmarsson made a stop at the Hawks' blue line and delivered a nifty backhand pass to Bolland at center ice near the Bruins' Hub-inspired spoked B.

Bolland, who had played on every line this season in trying to find his game through injuries, darted across the Bruins blue line. As Ference backskated into position between Bolland and Rask, Bolland slipped the puck to Frolik on the right side.

By now, Boychuk had gotten back to cover the slot. Horton had come from halfway across the ice to check Frolik. Instead of making a safe play in the corner the way a defensive forward might, Frolik let a shot go that Rask blocked to the left boards.

The risky shot might have started the Bruins out of their zone with speed, but Kruger read the play from center and immediately went hard to the left half-boards. The quick Swedish forward reached the puck ahead of the tiring Krejci, who himself had come from halfway across the ice and who, like Horton, was working his second straight shift without benefit of a timeout.

An obvious play would have been to slide the puck deep into the corner and around behind the net, where Bolland was waiting.

In another life, Kruger was a center. In fact, as recently as the third period of Game 5, Kruger centered Kane and Bickell in Toews' absence. He has the talent. He also has the instincts, which told him to nudge the puck back to Oduya at the left point.

Consider Oduya. He had been a trade deadline acquisition a season earlier and performed extremely well in the Hawks' top four. But he struggled in the first-round playoff loss to the Coyotes.

What's more, the Krejci line had victimized Oduya and Hjalmarsson early in the series. They were all back on the ice. This would require nerve.

The safe play might have been to ring it around the boards. Oduya would have avoided a potential blocked shot that could carom to center ice and begin a rush against Crawford, who also had struggled against the Coyotes in his first playoffs as the Hawks unquestioned starter. Not that the criticism had reached him.

"I didn't listen to anybody," Crawford said. "What mattered was the guys in the room. Everyone was behind each other."

Crawford had their backs. He had earned their confidence that he would make stops when they took chances at the other end. Oduya saw he had a lane. He one-timed Kruger's pass on net with a smart, low shot.

By now, Frolik had come to the slot, and it's funny how things work out: After excelling in the thankless role as the league's best penalty killers, Kruger and Frolik were ready for their close-ups.

Stick down, facing the left point, Frolik deflected Oduya's shot just enough to beat Rask.

The puck clanged off the post.

It clanged off the post perfectly.

Instead of bouncing wildly, the way many shots off the post do, this one came straight out, knuckling softly in the crease.

As Oduya wound up, Bolland had jumped from behind the net to the left post, sneaking inside a Bruins defenseman. Bolland still might have missed a glorious chance if a scrambling Rask had connected while flailing at the puck with his stick. But Rask missed.

And there it was.

Tantalizingly, the puck refused to leave the crease.

And there was Bolland, stick down, banging it into forever just ahead of a Bruins defenseman bearhugging him.

"The puck went back to the 'D,' and (Oduya) shot it," Bolland said. "All I knew was it was sitting in front of me, so I had to tap it in."

Staggeringly, it was 3-2, Hawks, just 17 seconds after it stunningly had become 2-2.

Bolland tried to celebrate the latest goal in regulation to clinch the Stanley Cup. He tried to throw his arms and stick up.

They were wrapped by that Bruins defenseman. Finally, Bolland loosed his hands. Gloves flew. The stick went. Hugs and helmet taps all around. All of Boston bent in agony.

That Bruins defenseman? Boychuk.

Of course. The man who avoided a suspension for viciously driving his fists into Toews' head a game earlier. It was a hit that had kept Toews out for the entire third period of Game 5.

"(Toews) got his bell rung last game," Quenneville said after the clincher. "He was good to go here tonight. Played a monster game."

Boychuk was too late to do anything with those hands now.

Hockey karma. You know how it can be.

"It's a bad feeling. Bad, like an awful feeling," Boychuk said. "You can't really describe it. As a player it's probably one of the worst feelings you can get when you are up by one goal with a minute and 20 left and somehow you lose the game."

The Hawks killed off the remaining 58.3 seconds. But you know that. What you never want to forget are those amazing, shocking, magnificent 17 seconds that won a Stanley Cup.

"Forever. I mean, you are going to remember forever," Boychuk said.

"What a game, what an ending, what a season," Quenneville said.

Seventeen seconds, enough for a lifetime.

Chicago Tribune LOADED: 06.30.2013

682970 Chicago Blackhawks

NHL draft: Homegrown talents fueled Blackhawks’ Stanley Cup run

BY MARK LAZERUS mlazerus@suntimes.com June 29, 2013 1:18AM

Updated: June 30, 2013 2:41AM

Dave Bolland scored the Stanley Cup-winning goal for the Blackhawks, but the team’s second championship in four years can trace its origins back well beyond the 17 seconds of Game 6 that forever will live in franchise lore.

Think back to 2002, when the Hawks drafted a little-known defenseman out of Michigan State named Duncan Keith. Or 2003, when they used their first two picks on Brent Seabrook and Corey Crawford. Bolland and Bryan Bickell were taken in 2004, and Niklas Hjalmarsson came in 2005.

Then came the two picks that changed the franchise — Jonathan Toews with the third overall pick in 2006, and Patrick Kane with the first overall pick in 2007.

Throw in 2011 picks Brandon Saad and Andrew Shaw, and 2008 sixth-rounder Ben Smith, and 11 of the 21 Hawks who saw action in the Stanley Cup Final were home-grown talents.

“We’ve built this team for the most part from the ground up, adding a few pieces from the outside,” Hawks general manager Stan Bowman said. “Really, the core from this group came from drafting. We’d like to continue this process.”

Most picks never make it to the NHL. For every Kane and Toews, there’s a Jack Skille and Kyle Beach. For every late-round gem such as Shaw and Hjalmarsson, there are countless players who have never and will never sniff the NHL. So at this year’s draft on Sunday in Newark, N.J., the Hawks will have to be particularly efficient. Thanks to the trade for Johnny Oduya trade, the Hawks don’t have a second- or third-round pick. And they dealt one of their two fourth-rounders to the San Jose Sharks in the Michal Handzus trade.

Not that anyone’s complaining, given the payoff of those deals. But the Hawks will pick last in the first round — 30th — and then not again until the 121st pick. In all, they only have five selections.

The lack of picks plus a surplus of salary could yield some draft-day deals. With the Hawks trying to re-sign Bickell — who said Thursday that he’d be willing to give the Hawks a hometown discount to stay with the team that drafted him — there have been rumblings that Bolland and his $3.375 million salary could be on the trading block. The Hawks are taking about $6 million off the books by buying out the contracts of defenseman Steve Montador and forward Rostislav Olesz, but they still need to free up some cash to sign everyone they want to sign.

Plus, Bowman would like to add a few picks so he and director of amateur scouting Mark Kelley can try to pluck the next big piece of the puzzle out of obscurity.

“The draft’s an important part,” Bowman said. “So if you can acquire picks, that’s good.”

The draft tends to be a hotbed of wheeling and dealing, if for no other reason than all the GMs are in the same place. Bowman expected plenty of action. During the Hawks’ salary purge in the summer of 2010, they traded Dustin Byfuglien, Ben Eager and Brent Sopel to the Atlan­ta Thrashers the day before the draft. In 2011, the Hawks dealt Brian Campbell to the Florida Panthers (for Olesz) and Troy Brouwer to the Washington Capitals for a first-round draft pick that became Phillip Danualt, now a highly ­regarded prospect in the Hawks system.

“It’s just the way it’s always ­happened,” Bowman said. “There’s an event, the draft, and once that passes, the urgency to do a deal isn’t really there. There’s nothing that tends to bring people together. … There’s always a lot of talk around then, and if it makes sense, we’ll look into it.”

NOTE: Blackhawks winger Brandon Saad was named to the NHL’s All-Rookie team Saturday based on voting by the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association. Saad, who had 10 goals and 17 assists in 46 games, was a finalist for the Calder Trophy, which goes to the league’s top rookie.

Chicago Sun Times LOADED: 06.30.2013

682971 Chicago Blackhawks

Blackhawks fans, Corey Crawford go ‘nuts’ at rally

BY MARK LAZERUS mlazerus@suntimes.com June 28, 2013 3:28PM

Updated: June 29, 2013 5:13PM

Corey Crawford ambled to the front of the stage and surveyed the thousands upon thousands who packed 12 softball diamonds worth of Hutchinson Field and then some. The quiet, unassuming Crawford smiled broadly, clutching the championship belt playoff MVP Patrick Kane had just handed him for being ‘‘the best player in the playoffs.’’

After a year of clichés and coachspeak, and a rally full of well-meaning but uninspiring platitudes, Crawford leaned into the microphone and finally said what everyone else in the city was thinking.

‘‘[Expletive] right, Chicago!’’ he bellowed. ‘‘Woo! Biggest bunch of beauties in the league, [expletive] worked their nuts off for this trophy! Woo! No one will ever take this away from us! We’re the champs!’’

Ah, yes. Raspy voices, slurred speech and a few F-bombs for good measure. Truly a hockey celebration.

Four days of lugging the Stanley Cup from bar to bar around Chicago culminated in a summer bash at Grant Park on Friday. First came a parade that choked downtown streets. Then came a raucous rally on the same field on which Barack Obama gave his 2008 election night speech.

Hawks fans lined Adams Street behind the United Center six or seven deep hours before the parade even began, then greeted the double-decker buses topped with the Hawks and their families along Washington Street, dozens deep at some points. Fans waved Swedish flags, Canadian flags, American flags and Chicago flags. They sat on each other’s shoulders and screamed through the whole parade as if it were a Jim Cornelison national anthem.

Once the procession made it to the waiting throngs at Grant Park, Cornelison kicked off the party with a rousing anthem and emcee Pat Foley introduced the front office, the coaching staff, and finally the players. Former Hawks icons Pierre Pilote, Tony Esposito, Denis Savard and Bobby Hull were on the stage, too.

The fans watched highlight videos of the playoffs — cheering loudest for the clips of Crawford’s headlock on the Kings’ Kyle Clifford after Clifford went after Jonathan Toews in the Western Conference final, and, of course, for Dave Bolland’s Cup-clinching goal in Game  6 against the Boston Bruins.

They sang ‘‘Happy Birthday’’ to general manager Stan Bowman, who turned 40 on Friday, chanted ‘‘De-Troit Sucks!’’ one more time for good measure and booed Gov. Pat Quinn, who proclaimed it ‘‘Stanley Cup Champion Chicago Blackhawks Day.’’