Hawks can't climb out of 2-goal hole

Even though the season is younger than young, Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville knew Thursday night's game in Nashville, featuring the last two teams in the league without a loss in regulation, could mean quite a bit.

“It's a big game for us,” Quenneville said following morning skate. “It's a chance to get into first place.

“Nashville's in a good spot. At the end of the year, you never know how it's going to play out, but starts to the season can really put you in the right spot.”

Well, the Hawks had neither the start nor the final result they were looking for and despite a swarmy third period, fell 3-2 to the Predators, who improved to 5-0-2 and upped their advantage on the Hawks in the Central Division to 3 points.

“I liked our last 20 (minutes) — it was our best by a mile,” Quenneville said of the Hawks' third-period urgency. “But when you put yourself down two goals to this team, it's a tough spot.”

The Hawks actually jumped out to the lead Thursday when Ben Smith scored on a hard-fought goal following a Marcus Kruger wraparound attempt midway through the first period.

“I think our first goal showed the type of goals we wanted to score — especially against a team like that,” captain Jonathan Toews said. “But we didn't do it often enough or consistent enough.”

Nashville's James Neal tied the game in the final minute of the period and followed up by scoring the next 2 goals as well for a natural hat trick which gave the Preds a seemingly comfortable 3-1 lead early in the third, thanks in large part to the stellar play of goalie Pekka Rinne.

The big Finn came up big early in the third, with dynamite saves on Kris Versteeg and Brandon Saad, but with just under eight minutes remaining, Andrew Shaw beat Rinne to make things interesting.

But once again, when it counted down the stretch, Rinne was impenetrable.

“We'll give them credit,” Toews said, “That's a team we have to respect and be ready for every time we play them.

“We know every division game is important, so yeah, it was a tough one to let slip away.

“I thought we played a simple, tough road game tonight, it wasn't good enough.”

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