Mark Spector

Mark Spector is a columnist for sportsnet.ca

The Blackhawks still haven’t learned you can’t ever take a team lightly in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

CHICAGO -- Premature adoration.

The Vancouver Canucks have been there before, when beating Dallas or St. Louis in the first round was enough to set the locals to planning the proverbial parade route.

It happens to the best of them, and it goes on in every city.

In fact, the whole process is part of steeling a team, instilling in its DNA the realization that winners don't take nights off in the playoffs. That the truly great teams are the ones who play as if they are merely good, and anything less than their best might not be enough.

The Blackhawks, we're pretty sure, are caught in the throes of premature adoration, here in a town where you can't swing a cat without hitting another reference to the rebirth of the Blackhawks. Sometimes, it can seem as if filling the building again is a free passport to the Stanley Cup final.

Try this quote on for size, issued by Patrick Kane moments after the Blackhawks' 5-1 no-show in Game 1: "We came in tonight and thought it was going to be an easier series -- which, obviously, it isn't."

It is a classic case of a group of young players who can't walk a block of Michigan Ave. without being slapped on the back and begged for an autograph. The brand is back here in Chicago. The old Indian head is everywhere -- on shirts, in storefronts and all over WGN.

Their run last year to the Conference final came easy and without the pressure of expectation. This year they've already been tabbed by EA Sports to win the Cup, and picked by many to come out of the West.

As such, they have gone from the hunters to the hunted. The same way the Nashville Predators did a few years ago, when their GM went out and landed Peter Forsberg at the deadline. It changed everything, Preds coach Barry Trotz said a couple of weeks ago here.

"It's a lot different," Trotz said, "because anything less than victory is failure, really."

As Kane alluded to, it's not so easy now for the Chicago Blackhawks. They can't just toss their gear out on the ice and reel in a "W." Especially when you consider that their opponent has, to a certain extent, been through this same process themselves.

A year ago the Canucks were three minutes away from taking a 3-1 lead over Chicago in Round 2. They took their foot off the gas, if only for a moment, and never regained the lost momentum.

That experience was, for the Canucks, a mighty teacher.

"Every goal matters. Every play matters," Kyle Wellwood said Sunday. "Whenever you have a chance to make a play -- 5-1, 3-0, whenever -- you've got to make it.

"For Chicago, we surprised them in Game 1," he continued. "We've made steps as a team from last year, to become a club that's more resilient, more competitive. We're not (intimidated) by them; we can compete with their best game.

"I don't think they thought we improved as much. We surprised them a bit. Game 2 will show more who is the better club."

Sorry, but how do you get surprised by the Vancouver Canucks, a team that won the Northwest, scored one more goal than Chicago this season, and has Roberto Luongo in goal?

"I guess we can look back at the score and the way it was played out, maybe there was a bit of disrespect going into the series," said Blackhawks head coach Joel Quenneville, offering a more telling representation of the Blackhawks headspace on Saturday night.

Whatever it was that afflicted Chicago in Game 1, you can bet it has been flushed from the Blackhawks system. Sunday was indeed a day of wrest here in Chicago.

"We're disappointed," said Jonathan Toews, whose team has lost Game 1 of its last four series. "We're all feeling it this morning, the embarrassment of a score like that, especially in Game 1 when you're expecting both teams are going to be excited, playing with a lot of energy, and trying to get that first win under their belts. We're disappointed in ourselves, but we'll forget about it and move on."

Sometimes, you can move on. Sometimes, you don't move on.

You have to wonder when the lesson gets driven home for these young Blackhawks.