Hossa sparks Hawks; Carcillo sidelined
Marian Hossa scored 2 goals for the second game in row, while Dave Bolland also scored twice to pace the Blackhawks to a 6-4 victory over the Phoenix Coyotes in the first meeting between the two teams since meeting in the first round of the playoffs last April.
The Hawks trailed 2-1 in the second period before Patrick Sharp, Hossa and Viktor Stalberg scored to make it 4-2.
Sharp scored off a feed from Bolland, Hossa on a pass from Michal Rozsival and Stalberg off a pass from Bryan Bickell.
The goals from Hossa and Stalberg came 50 seconds apart late in the period.
Rookie Brandon Saad took the injured Dan Carcillo’s place with Jonathan Toews and Hossa on the top line.
“It’s exciting,” Saad told reporters. “You never like to see a player go down like that. I just have to keep it simple no matter who I’m playing with.”
Hawks coach Joel Quenneville said Carcillo would miss about a month with a right knee injury suffered late in the third period of Saturday’s win at Los Angeles when he became tangled up with Drew Doughty along the boards.
It’s not the same knee that Carcillo hurt last season. He spent most of the last year rehabbing a torn ACL in his left knee.
“Danny’s probably going to be out about a month,” Quenneville told reporters before the game. “No surgery. It’s unfortunate that he finally gets back and had 10 great minutes. I thought he looked very good on that line (with Jonathan Toews and Marian Hossa). That was a very dangerous line for us.
“But keep your spirits up, work through it and get excited to come back again. He knows the process of working in that rehab area and the commitment that’s needed to get his game back to where it was or is. It’ll be a process, but we look forward to getting him back.”
Quenneville has liked Saad since last year when he made the team out of training camp.
“He’s a young kid who can play with top guys,” Quenneville said. “He’s got some ability offensively. He sees plays and makes plays, protects the puck well. We feel (Saad) is capable of not just being a good player, but there’s a lot of upside. No matter what line he plays on he has to be responsible defensively.”
Ray Emery got the start in goal despite Corey Crawford’s strong performance against the Kings.
“Back-to-back games and we’ve got six games in nine days this week, so I wanted to get Ray in a game to get him part of the team right away and get a game under his belt,” Quenneville said. “He played well for us last year as well.”
The Hawks are playing 10 of their first 12 games on the road.
“How we play is going to be important,” Quenneville said. “I think if we play with the same predictability that we started with (Saturday against the Kings), and improve off of those levels, we’ll find a way to keep ourselves in games and get points.”
It was 1-1 after the first period with David Moss and Bolland trading goals.
Bolland had a tap-in past Mike Smith on a power play for his first goal of the season thanks to a great pass from Patrick Kane.