Mike Brophy

Veteran hockey columnist Mike Brophy writes Mondays, Wednesdays and Friday on Sportsnet.ca and appears regularly on Hockeycentral.

Hawks captain Jonathan Toews has yet to score a goal in the series.

Blackhawks. For that matter, you can throw the San Jose Sharks into the mix, too.

In what has been the most hotly-contested first round of National Hockey League playoffs in memory -- all eight series split the first two games -- we are seeing the potential of a couple of massive upsets, most notably the Western Conference's seventh-seeded Predators taking a 2-1 series lead on the second-seeded Blackhawks.

There are very high hopes for the young, supercharged Blackhawks this season, but the slower, duller, methodical, offence-challenged Predators are now in the driver's seat. That's courtesy of Tuesday night's convincing 4-1 victory during which the Predators managed 35 shots on net while limiting the Blackhawks to 27. The amazing thing is the Predators did it without their leading goal-scorer, Patric Hornqvist, who missed the game with the dreaded "upper-body" injury. Turns out the Preds didn't need Hornqvist or his upper body.

Patrick Kane, who might want to rethink the mullet at this stage, and Jonathan Toews each managed just one shot on goal for the suddenly-slumping Hawks. The Blackhawks averaged 3.3 goals per game in the regular season, but have scored just four goals in the series. Nashville's David Legwand, meanwhile, picked a great night to finally validate his excessively large salary by scoring once and setting up two more.

Let's be honest, there weren't too many people who gave the Predators much hope in this series. The Preds are one of those low-budget teams that works its tail off just to get to the dance and then disappears like fog on a summer's morning. Nashville made the playoffs four times in its first 10 years in the league and was bounced from the first round all four times with an accumulative record of 6-16.

The Blackhawks have not won the Stanley Cup since Bobby Hull had (real) hair in 1960-61. There have been five trips to the final since then, the most recent being 1991-92, and many felt this was the year the team would finally sip champagne from the Cup. It may still happen, but based on what we have seen thus far, it will be more difficult than perhaps first thought.

There is now little room for error for the Blackhawks. There were similar high hopes for the team last year, but when they were eliminated in the conference final, it was felt they might be a little too youthful to go all the way. This year, there are no excuses. They have one of the most explosive offences in the NHL and a better-than-average defence. Goaltending has been a much ballyhooed issue, but it's hard to make the case it has been responsible for putting the team in the position it now finds itself.

The most obvious change must be the Hawks somehow finding a way to escape Nashville's suffocating defensive system. While Kane has two goals and three points in the series, Toews has yet to score and has just one assist. Marian Hossa, the guy who usually gets his team to the final even if it doesn't win the Cup, has just one assist and is minus-3.

For the Predators to reach the second round for the first time in franchise history, they must continue to play the same determined and disciplined style they have for years under coach Barry Trotz. Their mission is to grind the opposition into the ground and thus far they have been successful against Chicago.

As for the Sharks, everybody knows about their history of choking in the first round. When they dropped a 1-0 overtime decision Sunday night in a game in which they out-shot the Colorado Avalanche 51-17, only to have veteran defenceman Dan Boyle direct a shot into his own net (with a slight glance off the stick of Colorado's Ryan O'Reilly), it looked like they were following an all too familiar path to oblivion.

Last night's 2-1 overtime victory in a game that easily could have gone either way gives the Sharks new life. That said, there are still big concerns for this team. The team's top line of Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau and Dany Heatley has yet to generate a goal in the series. Give Heatley a pass because he appears to be skating on just one leg because of injury, but Thornton and Marleau's play remains a huge concern. If they don't get better, and the Avs continue to play with the dogged determination they have displayed thus far, the series could go either way.