Chicago Blackhawks Thread

[Don Imus]

Chicago 7,Blue Jackets 2

1st Period Chicago3:55, Patrick Kane 13 (power play) (James Wisniewski, Brent Seabrook) Chicago5:27, Brent Seabrook 7 (unassisted) Chicago14:09, Dustin Byfuglien 10 (Rene Bourque, Brent Sopel) Chicago17:03, Dustin Byfuglien 11 (Brent Sopel) 2nd Period Columbus1:25, Dick Tarnstrom 2 (power play) (Michael Peca, Nikolai Zherdev) Chicago7:59, Martin Havlat 7 (Robert Lang, Tuomo Ruutu) Columbus13:06, Fredrik Modin 3 (power play) (David Vyborny, Rick Nash) Chicago15:23, James Wisniewski 6 (Patrick Sharp, Jonathan Toews) 3rd Period Chicago19:27, Robert Lang 18 (unassisted)

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- The Chicago Blackhawks unloaded on the Columbus Blue Jackets and then coach Ken Hitchcock took his turn.

Dustin Byfuglien scored two goals and the Blackhawks rolled to a big early lead to beat the Blue Jackets 7-2 on Wednesday night.

The Blackhawks led 4-0 after one period, inciting a crowd of almost 15,000 at Nationwide Arena to loudly boo the home team as they left the ice at the first intermission.

Hitchcock felt their pain.

"These are not rookie mistakes. These are fundamental errors made by good players," a visibly upset Hitchcock said. "Hockey's a game of emotion and intensity and when the other team has it and you don't, you're not going to have very many successful nights. That's what happened tonight."

Columbus came into the game just four points out of the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference.



"This will take us one way or the other," Hitchcock said. "We're either going to go up and grab this thing, or we're going to go (making a sound like a balloon rapidly deflating)."

Robert Lang, Brent Seabrook, James Wisniewski and Martin Havlat each had a goal and an assist and Brent Sopel had two assists for the Blackhawks, who scored on three of their first four shots. Patrick Kane also scored.

"It was a good team effort all around," Byfuglien said. "We came right out of the gates hungry and ready to go. We needed a win to turn things around. Everything's looking positive right now."

That can't be said for the Blue Jackets, who lost their fifth in a row at home.

Fredrik Modin, activated off the injured list earlier in the day, and Dick Tarnstrom had the goals for Columbus, which has lost seven of eight.

Chicago coach Denis Savard had ripped his team after it was shut out 1-0 by Pascal Leclaire in the teams' previous meeting on Jan. 24. Referring to the team mascot, he said that the Blackhawks needed to "commit to the Indian."

The Blackhawks were certainly committed on this night.

Coming in 27th in the NHL on the power play, they scored with a man advantage just 3:55 in. Wisniewski cranked up for a slap shot from the top of the left circle then spotted Kane streaking toward the net and passed to him for an easy tap-in.

With the teams each down a man, Columbus' Michael Peca tried a shot from the blue line that Seabrook blocked. Seabrook beat Peca to the puck and then sailed in on Fredrik Norrena to net a backhand for his seventh of the season.

There were a smattering of boos -- which grew louder shortly after when Byfuglien scored his first. He stole the puck from Blue Jackets rookie defenseman Kris Russell then avoided Norrena's poke check to score into an empty net.

Hitchcock pulled Norrena and replaced him with Leclaire, who had the flu and was expected to watch the action.

Moments later, Leclaire was victimized when Byfuglien was at the doorstep for a jam shot of Sopel's shot from the point.

"It's been a while since I was able to play all four lines and all four lines competed," Savard said. "The six defensemen competed and we got good goaltending again by (Nikolai Khabibulin)."

Byfuglien was originally credited with a power-play goal in the final minute before officials ruled that Modin had inadvertently knocked the puck into the net and awarded the goal to Lang because he was the last Chicago player to touch it.

"We know how good we can be," Seabrook said. "Columbus is a great team; they're so great defensively. They don't give up much. To have sort of an outbreak like that gives us confidence that we can score against any team in the league."

Watching this team got me to thinking that Chicago might be turning into a Hockey town very soon, 9pts away from a playoff spot

[Don Imus]

[Packer Fan]

Right back in it:

Western Conference
Rank GP W L OT Pts GF GA Home Away L10
1 Detroit Red Wings* 59 41 13 5 87 194 130 21-6-2 20-7-3 6-3-1
2 Dallas Stars* 60 35 20 5 75 176 148 18-9-2 17-11-3 8-2-0
3 Minnesota Wild* 57 32 21 4 68 157 152 17-9-2 15-12-2 6-3-1
4 Anaheim Ducks 61 32 22 7 71 150 151 16-7-4 16-15-3 5-4-1
5 San Jose Sharks 56 31 17 8 70 149 137 14-12-5 17-5-3 6-3-1
6 Calgary Flames 57 29 20 8 66 165 164 15-10-7 14-10-1 7-3-0
7 Nashville Predators 58 30 22 6 66 169 156 18-8-3 12-14-3 6-2-2
8 Colorado Avalanche 57 30 22 5 65 163 156 18-9-2 12-13-3 5-4-1
9 Vancouver Canucks 57 28 22 7 63 149 145 15-11-2 13-11-5 3-5-2
10 Columbus Blue Jackets 59 26 24 9 61 143 155 16-9-6 10-15-3 3-4-3
11 Phoenix Coyotes 57 28 25 4 60 155 159 11-13-2 17-12-2 4-4-2
12 St Louis Blues 55 25 22 8 58 142 159 16-10-5 9-12-3 3-5-2
13 Edmonton Oilers 58 26 27 5 57 155 172 15-14-1 11-13-4 5-5-0
14 Chicago Blackhawks 56 25 25 6 56 157 162 13-13-1 12-12-5 4-4-2
15 Los Angeles Kings 59 24 32 3 51 167 194 12-16-1 12-16-2 5-4-1

[Don Imus]

Blackhawks to host outdoor game at Soldier Field?

A Chicago Park District panel recommends that a new contract to manage Soldier Field go to SMG, which made a pitch of hosting an outdoor Blackhawks hockey game at the lakefront stadium. Mitchell said the district would like the hockey plan to include a college contest and a way to allow people to use the rink for pleasure skating in a week-long event.

[JD67]

Outdoor game would be awesome!

[motownbear]

I would definately make the trip for that!

If you were to get a Blackhawks jersey who from the rookie would you get Kane or Towes?

[Don Imus]

both

[Don Imus]

Blackhawks lead 3-0 after the 1st,Toews 2 goals already and Duncan Keith added the 1st goal and Cam Barker kicked some ass

[Don Imus]

Rene Bourque and Barker goals in the first 4 min of the second 5-0 Hawks

[Don Imus]

1st Period
Chicago 1:04, Duncan Keith 8 (Martin Havlat, Robert Lang)
Chicago 6:22, Jonathan Toews 16 (Brent Sopel, Jordan Hendry)
Chicago 12:42, Jonathan Toews 17 (Patrick Kane, Brent Seabrook)
2nd Period
Chicago 2:28, Rene Bourque 6 (Brent Sopel, Dave Bolland)
Chicago 3:10, Cam Barker 3 (Dave Bolland, James Wisniewski)
3rd Period
Chicago 3:47, Patrick Sharp 27 (Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews)
Nashville 6:12, Jason Arnott 20 (power play) (Marek Zidlicky, J.P. Dumont)

Chicago 6, Nashville 1


Preview - Box Score - Recap

February 14, 2008

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- Jonathan Toews scored a pair of goals and assisted on another and the Chicago Blackhawks beat the Nashville Predators 6-1 Thursday night.

Duncan Keith, Rene Bourque, Cam Barker and Patrick Sharp also scored for the Blackhawks.

Jason Arnott scored for the Predators.

Toews was playing in his third game since missing 16 with a sprained knee. These were his first goals since his return. He had a pair of assists in his first two games.

This was the last game of a seven-game road trip for the Blackhawks and their second game in as many nights.

Keith opened the scoring a little more than a minute into the game setting the tone for the Blackhawks as he scored on a one-timer from low inside the left faceoff circle against Nashville goaltender Chris Mason.




Toews scored the first of his two goals at 6:22 when he skated down the left side and around the back of the net to score on a wraparound behind Mason's back.

At 12:42, Toews struck again from the left circle as he put the puck between Mason's leg pads.

After the third goal, Mason was sent to the bench and replaced by Dan Ellis.

In the second period, the Blackhawks did not let up. At 2:28, Brent Sopel skated just inside the blue line and sent the puck into the slot. Bourque, near the top of the slot, beat Ellis to his glove side.

Barker scored the fifth goal less than a minute later. He blasted a one-timer from high inside the left circle that went past Ellis wide to his left.

In the third period, Sharp took a shot from the left circle that beat Ellis to his stick side for the sixth goal for the Blackhawks at 3:47.

Arnott scored on the power play from the middle of the slot, catching Patrick Lalime out of position at 6:12.

Notes

This was the third time this season the Blackhawks have beaten the Predators by scoring five or goals. Nashville's Kevin Klein was reassigned to Milwaukee of the American Hockey League for a conditioning assignment. Chicago recalled Corey Crawford from Rockford of the AHL as a backup goaltender. The Blackhawks are 16-1-1 when scoring more than four goals in a game. They are 6-6-1 in the second game of back-to-backs. Arnott scored his 20th goal of the season and his 750th career point.

3 STARS

Jonathan Toews
Blackhawks - C
Goals: 2
Assists: 1



Patrick Kane
Blackhawks - RW
Goals: 0
Assists: 2



Patrick Lalime
Blackhawks - G
Saves: 24
Save Pct.: .960

[Don Imus]

Avs lose tonight were only 7pts away from the 8th

[4th and 26]

I am going to the ice hogs game tonight and then tomorrow a Hawks game. I will be posting plenty of pictures of the game unless the Fing storm hits us real hard tonight and tomorrow. Snow sucks like the packers.

[Don Imus]

This is a huge game for us tommorow againsy the AVS,cool cant wait to see,what level

[soulman]

It would be nice to actually see this team recover some of that lost glory now that old "Dollar Bill" has kicked the bucket. These rookies of ours are hot.

[Don Imus]

1st Period
Chicago 4:48, Dustin Byfuglien 12 (James Wisniewski, Patrick Kane)
2nd Period
Chicago 2:53, Martin Havlat 8 (James Wisniewski, Cam Barker)
3rd Period
Colorado 17:35, Jaroslav Hlinka 7 (Cody McLeod, Scott Hannan

Patrick Lalime stopped 21 shots and Byfuglien and Havlat had a goal in the Chicago Blackhawks' 2-1 win over the Colorado Avalanche on Sunday.
Blackhawks are now 5pts away from the 8th seed