Blackhawks in complete control, beat Wild 4-1

Coming off a trio of less-than-stellar performances, and with a four-day break between games on the horizon, the Blackhawks knew just what they had to do in their rematch with Minnesota at the United Center.

Get off to a good start, score early and put in a full 60-minute effort.

And instead of just talking about it as they had for the past week or so, actually backing up their words.

Done, done and done.

The Hawks jumped out to an early two-goal lead and never looked back in cruising to a 4-1 victory over the struggling Wild in what was their most complete game in quite a while.

"Absolutely," defenseman Duncan Keith said. "That was a lot better than we've played - especially in the last couple of games.

"We wanted to have a good start and carry it through, and we did that."

While five different Hawks recorded multi-point games, goalie Corey Crawford turned aside 36 of the 37 shots he faced, including a penalty-shot by Jason Zucker to pick up his 17th win of the season.

"We were making plays all over the ice," said Crawford, who made 42 saves in the Hawks' 4-2 road win Thursday. "Plays to get out of our zone, through the neutral zone, and then guys, as usual, were making plays in their zone.

"Definitely think the guys feel good about this game."

From the drop of the puck, the Hawks were the big-time aggressors Sunday and it paid dividends - beginning with Marian Hossa's ninth goal of the season off a terrific feed from Jonathan Toews and continuing with the red-hot Bryan Bickell taking an equally sweet pass from Patrick Kane to beat Niklas Backstrom for his seventh point in as many games.

"In the first period we had so many great shifts," said Hossa, who celebrates his 36th birthday today.

The Hawks finished the opening 20 minutes up 2-0, but that score could've easily been doubled considering the number of quality scoring chances they had.

Well, they took care of that in the second on goals by Brad Richards and Johnny Oduya to put the game out of reach.

"I liked how we started," coach Joel Quenneville said. "With the four days off here, at least we're going away feeling better about ourselves than in our recent couple of games."

Crawford's shutout bid was spoiled in the final five minutes when Matt Cooke knocked home a rebound for his third goal of the season.

"They outskated us tonight," Cooke said of the Wild's second loss to the Hawks in four days. "At home we outplayed them something fierce; we got beat by a goalie.

"But this is different."