CHICAGO — He did it once. Then he did it a second time. After the Chicago goaltender made a save Friday night, Pat Foley, the Blackhawks’ beloved broadcaster, said the name Antti Niemi. He meant Ray Emery, of course. Niemi was at the other end of the ice, playing for the San Jose Sharks.

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To be fair, they weren’t Foley-ian slips. They were Freudian slips. These Blackhawks look like the 2009-10 Blackhawks, the ones who brought the Stanley Cup back to Chicago for the first time since 1961. They are atop the NHL again – 14-0-3 after their 2-1 victory over San Jose, setting a record by starting the season with points in 17 straight games.

More important, they are a complete team again. What these 17 games have shown is that, for the first time since blowing up half the roster because of a salary-cap crunch after winning the Cup, the ’Hawks have stars and a strong supporting cast – four lines, seven ‘D,’ good goaltending, sharp penalty killing. If there is a nit to pick, it’s that the power play isn’t dominant. But it ain’t bad.

“Is it the same team? I’ve heard the comparisons,” said Sharks forward Adam Burish, a member of the 2010 Blackhawks. “You’ll have to wait till playoffs start, and we’ll see. But they’re a deep team.”

This is not the same team, not in composition – and certainly not in accomplishment, not yet. But it was never going to be the same team. Those Blackhawks were built primarily by Dale Tallon, who was replaced as general manager by Stan Bowman before the Cup win. These Blackhawks are Bowman’s.

Bowman was the one who decided to commit to the core – Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Patrick Sharp, Marian Hossa, David Bolland, Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook. Bowman was the one who accepted the challenge of rebuilding the rest of the roster. Bowman was the one who stuck with it and stuck with coach Joel Quenneville, despite back-to-back first-round playoff losses, not to mention a long losing streak last season that raised a lot of questions.

“You believe in the guys that have gotten it done,” Bowman said. “You believe in Toews and Kane and Sharp and Bolland and Hossa and Keith and Seabrook. But they can’t do it themselves, right? They’ve got to have guys around them that can also buy into their roles, and the coaches.”

The Blackhawks’ new supporting cast does not match their old supporting cast one to one, though there are some parallels. Maybe Emery is the new Niemi, or Corey Crawford is the new Niemi, just because they’re goalies. Maybe Johnny Oduya is a poor man’s Brian Campbell as a puck-moving defenseman. There isn’t necessarily a new Dustin Byfuglien, though Viktor Stalberg stands in front of the net on the power play. There isn’t an exact replica of, say, John Madden or Kris Versteeg.

But every team has its own mix, and it can take time to get that mix right, especially after such a drastic change. Bowman remained patient as players developed in the organization and new acquisitions found their place. He didn’t panic when the team struggled at times and exited the playoffs early. He made some quiet, shrewd moves.

It has come together under Quenneville, who made one change on his staff last season, replacing Mike Haviland with Jamie Kompon, who once assisted him with the St. Louis Blues.

“If you go and make a bunch of changes and acquire guys, you have a great team on paper but if they don’t really mesh together and buy into their roles, it may not work,” Bowman said. “I think we finally got the right combination. We’ve had good players but now they’re integrating well into the whole team. The coaches deserve credit for figuring ways to get guys to understand their role and to go execute it.”

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