Chicago Hope

Denis Savard arrives at the arena a few minutes after seven on a late December morning and plops himself behind a desk in an office adjacent to the Chicago Blackhawks' dressing room. The office is borrowed-- Savard, who never big-times anybody, has kept his desk in the assistants' room even though he was promoted to head coach on Nov. 27--but the hockey pallor is his own, a product of too many hours at the rink and too many packs of Marlboro Lights. Nine hours earlier the Blackhawks had kicked away a 2--1 loss to Nashville by twice failing to clear the puck during a third-period penalty kill, including a clearing attempt that center Denis Arkhipov gift-wrapped to a Predator's stick. But in postgame comments Savard offered nothing more damning, or enlightening, than the observation that one-goal games are an NHL staple. The Blackhawks are a demonstrably better team since Savard inherited the job from the fired Trent Yawney (a respectable 9-5-3 after starting 7-12-2) and clearly a more dynamic one--they now send two forecheckers deep and encourage their defensemen to join the attack. But in terms of paint-peeling oratory in the room or coaching pearls tossed to the press, the revitalized Hawks are at the yawn of a new era.

"Arkhipov struggled a little, yeah," Savard says as he sits at his desk, an elfin smile on his lips. "But you know what? He's played so well for me, and down the line he's going to do a lot more good things than bad."

If the Stanley Cup is half full for Savard, who has dispelled some of the Eeyore-like gloom around the Blackhawks, it is far more empty for a franchise that hasn't won a Cup since 1961 (the second-longest streak of futility in NHL history), struggles to draw fans and has missed the playoffs in seven of the last eight seasons. To extend the A.A. Milne analogy, the team has basically been Pooh.

The notion that the 45-year-old Savard, one of five Blackhawks to have his number retired (he scored 377 goals in 13 seasons with the team), can bring structure and direction to Chicago, let alone restore hockey to the civic conversation, seems quixotic. For one thing, the Hawks, who made him an assistant nine years ago, have had seven head coaches during that time; he has been passed over more than the fruitcake on a holiday dessert table. For another, as a player he was all riffs and grace notes, a master of hockey jazz--not at all the cerebral sort who is an obvious future coach. Savard's game was so much a matter of improvisation that after he was traded to Montreal in 1990, then Canadiens coach Pat Burns struggled to find linemates for him. Burns even ordered the injured Sylvain Turgeon to sit in the press box and take notes about everything Savard did because Burns planned to try Turgeon with the mercurial center. Turgeon came away as flummoxed as everyone else. "I wish I had known then what I know now," says Savard, who retired in 1997 after 17 seasons, having scored 473 career goals and averaged 1.04 points per game in the playoffs. "Sometimes I was way too creative, and it doubled my work. I really wound up learning structure in Montreal. Without it, you can't win. You keep people accountable."

The erstwhile king of the blind pass, who now reminds his forwards to do what he says and not what he did, began his tenure as head coach by meeting individually with the members of his seven-player leadership group. When he came to Martin Havlat, whom he made an alternate captain when the Czech right wing returned on Dec. 9 from an ankle sprain, the message was direct. "Savvy told me, 'Score a goal every game,'" says Havlat, "'and we'll be all right.'"

Havlat's return, with two goals and an assist against the Minnesota Wild, proved to be a godsend. In his last 12 games Havlat had scored 15% of Chicago's goals, and through Sunday led the team with 12 goals and 13 assists. While hockey's chattering classes were questioning the three-year, $18 million contract that general manager Dale Tallon lavished on Havlat after obtaining him from salary-cap-strapped Ottawa last July, maybe they should have looked at his skill in his complementary role or at his playoff numbers last season, a robust 13 points in 10 games.

"I summer around [ Ottawa] and talked to some of their guys," says Blackhawks captain Adrian Aucoin, "and they all told me he'd been their most talented player. By far." Savard likens Havlat to Philadelphia star Peter Forsberg for his ability to dominate, but stylistically Havlat most resembles, in his unpredictability, a young Savard.

Maybe the Blackhawks' run is just the usual uptick after a coaching switch, or maybe it's something profound, like the reawakening of a somnolent franchise. "They say great players don't make good coaches, but some do and some don't," says goalie Nikolai Khabibulin, who returned from a broken finger two weeks before Savard took control and has been as effective as he was in his Cup season in Tampa Bay. "But he's got the chance to be good because he knows the game and he's very upbeat."

There you go: Someone, if not yet something, positive about Chicago hockey.