Crawford gives Chicago Blackhawks chance to roll

Anyone who only looks at the box score from the Chicago Blackhawks-Detroit Red Wings game Wednesday night will certainly take note that second-period goals by Artemi Panarin and Patrick Kane were a huge reason for the Hawks' 5-2 victory.

The two superstars scored in an 86-second span and turned a tight 1-0 game into a 3-0 bulge for coach Joel Quenneville's squad.

What fans won't see, though, is how pivotal Corey Crawford was in the Hawks' 40th win of the season, a victory that elevated them into first place in the Central Division.

"He's huge. He's been huge for us all year," Brent Seabrook told reporters in Detroit. "Crow does a good job of keeping himself in the game and coming up big when we need him."

Before Panarin and Kane did their thing, Crawford was busy turning away golden opportunity after golden opportunity from some of Detroit's biggest names. He stopped 16 shots in the second period alone, 3 coming from guys who have a combined 695 career goals.

The first chance came from Pavel Datsyuk, who walked in and fired from right in front of the net, but directly into Crawford's right shoulder.

Nine minutes later, Datsyuk stole the puck from Erik Gustafsson and fed Henrik Zetterberg, 15 feet in front of Crawford. The Hawks' netminder stopped that chance, lying down on the puck to secure it.

Less than a minute later, Justin Abdelkader found himself all alone with Crawford, but he was unable to convert.

"He made a big one on Datsyuk there … some big penalty kill saves as well," said Seabrook, who scored the Hawks' first goal and added 2 assists. "When he's back there playing like that, playing like we know he can, it gives us confidence up front."

Crawford set a career high with his 34th victory.

After those critical stops, the Hawks' power play went to work with Panarin scoring at 14:34 of the second period and Kane at 16:00.

Panarin's goal came with the Hawks skating 5-on-3. Jonathan Toews started the scoring sequence by pushing Danny DeKeyser far enough away from the net to allow Kane to feed Panarin for an easy one-timer and a 2-0 Hawks lead.

Just over a minute later, Kane buried his 37th goal on a wrist shot that easily beat Red Wings goalie Petr Mrazek.

The Hawks have converted on 10 of their last 21 power plays and are 8 of 11 when given a two-man advantage this season. That'll happen when you give Panarin and Kane that much time and space.

"They've got amazing sense for where each other are," Quenneville said. "Whether it's a cross-ice pass or play recognition or patience to settle it all down - there's a lot of different options, a lot of different looks. And both guys got that one-timer on that open side (which is) very dangerous with high skill."

Brad Richards scored for Detroit to make it 3-1 with 10:11 remaining to make things momentarily interesting, but Andrew Ladd and Panarin scored 35 seconds apart to make it 5-1, ending any chance of a Detroit comeback less than five minutes after Richards' goal.

Kane, who also had 2 assists, has 88 points, which ties a career high. Panarin is up to 24 goals and 59 points.

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