Antti Niemi was spectacular on Sunday night, stopping all 30 shots he faced in the Hawks 1-0 win.

After not playing for almost a month, it would be understandable if Antti Niemi was a little rusty. Despite getting off to a solid start in the wake of Cristobal Huet’s early season struggles, Niemi has had to watch as the Hawks have buoyed their more expensive veteran’s confidence over the past few weeks.

Huet, to his credit has responded by playing magnificent hockey over the past couple weeks, making Niemi a lost man on the back of the bench. But in the middle of a long road trip, in the second half of back-to-back nights with games against tough opponents, Niemi was the man on Sunday night.

The Canucks had a great addition to their offense with Daniel Sedin returning after a long absence due to injury, and were hoping to get a big home win against a key conference opponent. Especially the team that knocked them out of the playoffs a year ago.

On October 21, the Canucks came into the United Center and not only beat the Hawks on the scoreboard, but left them wounded as well. That was the night that Willie Mitchell knocked Jonathan Toews out of the lineup for a couple weeks with a concussion, and Brent Seabrook also suffered a concussion that night that would cost him a few games.

These two teams have a physical history, and Sunday night would be a great test for the young Hawks to see how strong the Hawks were on the road.

The Hawks, and Niemi, responded with a great, clutch performance.

Just as they did in Chicago back in October, the Canucks took the Hawks offense out of the game early and never let the Hawks find their groove. They held the Hawks to just 17 shots on goal, with only four coming in the third period. Many of those shots weren’t very good looks, and Roberto Luongo didn’t give up many rebound attempts.

Meanwhile, Vancouver did as good a job as any team this year of getting the puck on the Hawks net. The Blackhawks only allow an average of roughly 22 shots per game, but the Canucks got 30 shots on Niemi, with 12 coming in the first period alone. Niemi was up to the task, though, matching Luongo round for round.

Ben Eager mixed it up twice Sunday.

It was obvious from the get-go that this would be a physical game. Nearly every time the whistle blew there was an exchange of words, and on a couple occasions there were offsetting penalties called; Ben Eager took two such penalties on the night. Eager got himself into two fights on the night, and came out looking like the victor both times. His fight with Rick Rypien in the first period saw Eager land a couple solid left handed shots to Rypien’s head.

As the game progressed it became clear that it was going to come down to which team found an opportunity and capitalized. Thankfully for the Blackhawks, Bryan Bickell’s headache from Saturday night was gone.

Bickell put back one of the few rebounds Luongo allowed all night just 72 seconds into the third period to give the Blackhawks the lead, and the defense handled the rest. Niemi notched his second career shutout in only six NHL starts, and the Hawks extended their winning streak to seven.

The Hawks have now swept the first half of their Circus Trip, and will have a couple days off before a big test in San Jose on Wednesday night. It hasn’t been made official yet, but Marian Hossa should make his first appearance for the Hawks against the Sharks.

October’s in the books, and now November begins with even more questions than answers in the NHL’s Western Conference. So many injuries have hit the rosters that it’s beginning to raise concerns that some teams, like Vancouver, might not be able to withstand the losses of players and games early in the year.

Other teams, like Colorado and Los Angeles, have jumped out of the gates with a stronger showing than expected. Anze Kopitar leads the league in scoring, and Craig Anderson in Denver has been phenomenal (former Hawks prospect, too).

So let’s put it on paper. How do the teams in the West stack up after one month of the season, and how do they project moving forward.

15. Minnesota (5-9-0  10 pts)

The Wild thought adding injury plagued players like Martin Havlat would help them compete for a playoff spot this year, but the chance they took with those checkered pasts has come to haunt them. They’ve been outscored 42-31 through 14 games. Injuries and sloppy play have left Minnesota the lowest scoring team in the league.

14. Anaheim (4-6-2  10 pts)

The Ducks aren’t so mighty right now, and have fallen well behind the Kings in their annual competition to be southern California’s best insignificant team. Ryan Getzlaf has only scored one goal in 12 games, and the team’s third leading scorer is James Wisniewski. If not for Corey Perry and Getzlaf, the team’s 34-42 point differential would look a lot worse.

13. St. Louis (5-6-1  11 pts)

They definitely have the Blues in St. Louis right now, as they’ve only been able to muster a 2-5-0 record at home so far. Their offense has disappeared, climaxing with consecutive shutouts to end the month of October. Not a single Blues player has reached double digits in points yet, and Chris Mason is allowing 2.74 goals per game.

12. Nashville (6-6-1  13 points)

Until their last three games, the Predators weren’t living up to their name. They’ve been outscored 38-28, the worst differential in the Western Conference, and have had issues settling on a goalie. Their last three games, though, have been exceptional and they may have not only found a goalie, but their offense has come alive. Pekka Rinne appears to have established himself as the top goalie, benefiting from a 10-5 scoring differential in those three games (including a shutout of the Blackhawks).

11. Detroit Red Wings (5-4-3  13 pts)

They’ve struggled to stay healthy so far this year, already missing key components from last year’s conference championship team from free agency. With two of their top three centers out for between eight weeks and four months, the Wings are desperately seeking defense. They’ve come out of the gate averaging 3.50 goals per game, but are allowing nearly four. If there’s anything to the rumors that Detroit’s going to make a strong play to add Peter Forsberg, they could be a dangerous team.

10. Edmonton (7-7-1  15 pts)

The Oilers paid a lot of money for the 2008-09 Nikolai Khabibulin, but have seen the goalie that was regularly booed in Chicago the two previous seasons. The Bulin Wall has allowed 3.12 goals per game so far, and the offense has skated hard to keep pace. They’re very much an average team that will struggle to break into the top eight spots this spring for the playoffs without a trade.

9. Vancouver (8-7-0  16 pts)

What happens when you take Daniel Sedin, Sami Salo, Pavol Demitra and Roberto Luongo out of multiple games? That’s just to mention a few of the Canucks’ injury concerns to start this season, and they’re understandably struggling to stay above .500 through a tough early schedule. Sedin and Salo are both expected to miss most of November, so the ice will stay thin for the Canucks.

8. Dallas (6-3-5  17 pts)

If only they faced Cristobal Huet every night! Their inability to get it done in regulation has killed a team trying to get much-needed early wins without Mike Modano. They’re only converting 17.7 percent of their power play opportunities, perhaps the biggest impact of Modano’s absence. If they can get healthy and play defense (3.25 goals against per game), they could be a playoff team.

7. Columbus (7-5-1  15 pts)

The Jackets are in second place in the Central behind a strong start from Rick Nash, but are being outscored after a month of action (42-46). They’re going to need to step up their defense to allow their strong offense to shine. Obviously, getting Jan Hejda back off injured reserve should improve their defense, and that could happen as soon as Wednesday. They just lost Andrew Murray for four weeks, though. Like many teams, health is an ongoing issue.

6. Calgary (7-4-1  15 pts)

The Flames have the best converting power play in the conference (27.8 percent), but they’re allowing 3.5 goals per game. They’re an older, veteran squad that hasn’t received what they had hoped for from Mikka Kiprusoff in goal, but have been pleasantly surprised by former Blackhawks wing Rene Borque, who leads Calgary in scoring to date.

5. Phoenix (9-5-0  18 pts)

The Coyotes, unlike Edmonton, haven’t missed Wayne Gretzky for one second and have admirably played through their off-ice distractions to have a solid start. They’re third in the Pacific Division, and have held opponents to just over two goals per game. The NHL might have bought the best goalie in hockey in bankruptcy court, too, in Ilya Bryzgalov; he’s allowing only 1.78 goals per night and has sprinted out to an 8-3-0 record.

4. Los Angeles (9-4-2  20 pts)

Their offense, led by Kopitar, is as good as it gets in the league (51 goals through 15 games), but they’re not doing a lot of the little things right to jump into the top spot in the Pacific. The Kings are only killing 74.1 percent of power plays, and are only 5-3-2 in their last ten games. They’ll need to allow fewer than their current three goals per game to win their division, much less the conference.

3. Chicago (8-4-1  17 pts)

The Blackhawks are certainly talented enough to end the regular season in the top spot in the West, but haven’t jumped to that spot yet. Missing Jonathan Toews for two weeks hasn’t help a strikingly unproductive power play (17.3 percent), but their defense has been good around Cristobal Huet’s roller coaster season. Once they get Toews, Eager and Hossa back, watch out.

2. Colorado (10-3-2  22 pts)

The Avalanche have followed Anderson’s lead between the pipes and sprinted to an early lead in the Northwest, and could expand their six-point lead on a banged up Vancouver team. The perfect storm might have landed in Denver to begin this season, as the Avalanche are playing well while the rest of their division gets hurt and plays poorly. They could run away with their division before the Olympics.

1. San Jose (10-4-1  21 pts)

They took the huge gamble this summer in adding Dany Heatley to their roster, and it’s payed off on paper so far. They’ve scored almost a full goal per game more than their opponents, have the second ranked power play in the conference (25 percent) and third-best power play killing unit in the conference (85 percent). Chemistry will be a theme to watch as this season progresses, though… Heatley has never been known for making friends.

Edmonton Oilers D Sheldon Souray joins a growing list of Western Conference studs headed to the Injured Reserve. Souray has a concussion.

On Monday, another Western Conference team placed a key player in injured reserve. The Edmonton Oilers will be without blue line stud Sheldon Souray for an undetermined amount of time because of a concussion. Oilers head coach Pat Quinn’s tone when speaking about Souray’s injury has not been favorable, either.

Edmonton lost to the Blackhawks 4-3 in Chicago on Wednesday night, and are currently third place in the Northwest Division, behind Colorado and Calgary.

Injuries are attacking every roster in the Western Conference right now, with players like Johan Franzen, Jan Hejda, Daniel Sedin and Sami Salo all heading to the IR for what appears to be a decent amount of time. The Blackhawks have not been immune, either, as Marian Hossa continues to miss time and Ben Eager is on the IR with concussion-like symptoms as well.

After three home games this season, the Blackhawks have made a powerful statement to the rest of the league: they’re for real, and a force to be reckoned with in the coming months.

The 2009-10 NHL season is set up so that the first few months of the season will go a long way in determining playoff positioning at the end of April.

Because of the Olympics in February, the schedule is front-loaded with significant games against conference and divisional rivals because, with a two week break in the middle of the season, there just isn’t enough time to spread the games out.

The front-loaded schedule brings this season into focus now especially because of the injuries hitting the rest of the Western Conference.

Detroit lost Johan Franzen last week, Columbus announced they’ll be without Jan Hejdafor the next few weeks on Wednesday, and the Vancouver Canucks announced that they’re going to be without both Sami Salo and Daniel Sedin for over a month as well. The Blackhawks, of course, are starting their season without Marian Hossa and won’t get him into the lineup until mid-November.

As key players continue to drop like flies all over rosters in the Western Conference, the Blackhawks have the luxury of getting their young nucleus off to a strong start before adding Hossa to the mix. And they’ve done just that, starting the season 4-1-1.

But what’s equally important is that the Hawks are beating good teams they’ll face in important games later in the season as well. After a tough loss in Detroit’s home opener, the Blackhawks came home to Chicago and scored the maximum six points in defeating Colorado, Calgary and Edmonton.

Even without Hossa, the Blackhawks have started the season in a statistically dominating fashion.

They rank second in the Western Conference in goals per game on offense, are second in the NHL in fewest penalty minutes per game and are second in the league in shots on goal per game. They are averaging ten more shots on goal per game than their opponents through six games as well.

Patrick Sharp and Patrick Kane have already scored seven points each, while Kris Versteeg has six, all ranking among the top ten scorers in the Western Conference. Meanwhile, Brent Seabrook’s five points and Brian Campbell’s four rank among the top ten for defensivemen in the West as well. Seabrook also ranks third among Western Conference blue liners to date in average time on ice and hits.

On Thursday, the Blackhawks will place Cristobal Huet back in net against a struggling Nashville team that has only scored seven goals in their first five games. Antti Niemi improved to 3-0-0 on Wednesday, putting additional pressure on the expensive Huet to have a strong performance against the Predators.

Daniel Sedin will miss 4-6 weeks with a broken foot.

News breaking out of Vancouver on Tuesday night is that the Canucks have lost Daniel Sedin and Sami Salo both for roughly four to six weeks. Daniel Sedin broke his foot on Monday, while Salo has a knee sprain.

The Canucks have struggled out of the gates this year, starting the 2009-10 season 2-3-0 in their first five games. They have allowed as many goals as they’ve scored (17), and goalie Roberto Luongo has been struggling with health issues as well.

Daniel and Henrik Sedin both signed new four-year contracts with the Canucks this past summer worth over $6 million annually. Salo is making $3.75 million this season.

Last season, the Sedins led the Canucks to the Western Conference semi-finals, where they were eliminated by the Blackhawks. They were projected to be a contender in the Northwest Division this year, but already trail Calgary by five points. Losing Salo and Daniel Sedin for at least a month won’t help.