Forget about winning the season series against the Blues; it’ll be a success to survive it.

For some reason, the Blues have turned into the Broad Street Bullies, but that didn’t faze the Hawks much, as the visitors dominated 6-3.

Physical play, fights, and cheap shots were all on the Saturday night menu. Even Jonathan Toews dropped the gloves for only the second time in his career. This one came against David Backes, and though he may not have won the fight, a statement was made: We’re only going to take so much.

Cam Barker watched most of the game after coming to the defense of Patrick Sharp and getting kicked out early in the first period. Sharp took a mammoth hit from Mike Weaver at center ice, and then Barker jumped Weaver. He was given a total of 27 penalty minutes, including a game misconduct. Weaver got nothing. That came moments after Patrick Kane took a forearm from Barrett Jackman. Jackman also wasn’t penalized. At that point, the Hawks knew what kind of a night it was going to be in Davis Payne’s debut as St. Louis' head coach. And they were fine with it.

We haven’t even gotten to the cheap stuff. The Blues, behind Cam Janssen, didn’t feel like playing hockey, at times, in this game. The after-the-whistle stuff was on overdrive for St. Louis but it didn’t much affect the outcome, except to delay the inevitable ending.

They did accomplish one thing. Ben Eager was drawn into a match penalty when he took on Jackman, after a Janssen hit on Brent Sopel led to a small melee behind the Hawks net. The penalty draws an expulsion and a review by the league’s commissioner before he can play again. A match penalty is issued when there is an intent to injure. It wasn’t clear why the match penalty was issued over just a minor or major infraction. Before getting kicked out, Eager fought with B.J. Crombeen, while Colin Fraser threw down with Carlo Colaiacovo.

After it was over, coach Joel Quenenville, on Comcast SportsNet, referenced “old time” hockey in regards to the physical theme of the night. He was proud of the way his team hung together.

“We stick up for each other,” Quenneville said. “That’s one thing about this team. They will always be together.”

Lost in some of that ugly stuff was two goals by Tomas Kopecky early in the first period when the outcome was still in doubt. The fourth line has scored three goals in the last two games and adds another weapon to the already dangerous Hawks offense. Kopecky later hit the post vying for his first career hat trick. Dustin Byfuglien had a huge game, a day after not making the U.S. Olympic team. He had a team high six shots and two takeaways, one of which was an assist on a Kris Versteeg goal. Byfuglien stripped the puck, in his own zone, and sent it to Versteeg off the boards.

In the end, the Hawks survived and proved again they are much the better team, no matter what style is played.