Chicago Blackhawks strike late vs. Coyotes

It's mid-December.

The Arizona Coyotes were in town.

For Game 30 out of 82.

So forgive the Chicago Blackhawks - a little anyway - if they didn't exactly coming out firing on all cylinders Sunday night at the United Center.

A yawner of a game finally picked up in the third period as Corey Crawford turned away a flurry of good scoring chances, and Tommy Wingels, Artem Anisimov and Nick Schmaltz scored for the Hawks in a too-close-for-comfort 3-1 victory.

"I mean sometimes you look at your opponent a little bit," Patrick Kane said of the 7-21-5 Coyotes, who lost 1-0 on Saturday at Columbus. "You look at them playing last night (and) on a back-to-back. You come out, you think it might be an easy game. But they've got a lot better team than we saw earlier in the season."

Crawford made 31 saves - 5 during a four-minute span early in the third period to keep the game scoreless. The most impressive stop may have been on Max Domi's wraparound attempt with 12:39 remaining.

Fifteen seconds after that save, Wingels buried his third goal in seven games after receiving a perfect pass from John Hayden.

"Every night (Crawford) gives us a great chance," coach Joel Quenneville said. "A big save right before the (Wingels) score - Domi all alone right off their faceoff in our zone. Then we go down and score. So that was a big turning point."

True, but Arizona made things interesting when Anthony Duclair scored at 14:02 to tie things up at 1-1.

Then Kane took over.

First, he took a stretch pass from Brent Seabrook and fed Anismiov, who ripped home a shot from the right slot at 15:13 to give the Hawks a 2-1 lead. On his next shift, Kane stole the puck from Domi and raced the other way on a 2-on-1 with Schmaltz.

Kane's pass split a pair of Coyotes - including the diving Jakob Chychrun - and Schmaltz buried the shot for his fifth goal of the season.

Kane and Schmaltz both snapped four-game pointless streaks.

"When it kind of builds up like that, you can feel that you need to get something going," said Kane, who leads the team with 29 points.

The first two periods featured few high-quality scoring chances for either team, and the Hawks continued to struggle on the power play as they went 0-for-2.

Annoying as it might be, Kane said the Hawks (14-11-5) must get used to opponents playing a defensive-minded, "muck-it-up" type of game against them.

"We've got to find our way around it, even if we're 0-0 through two periods," Kane said. "Still be confident that we're in a good position here at home and eventually we can break through."

Said Quenneville: "First of all there are no easy games. But we have to take care of business on home ice. We have to put ourselves in a better position in our division, in our conference."

The Hawks conclude their three-game homestand against Florida on Tuesday, then face three tough Central Division foes in Winnipeg, Minnesota and Dallas.