Blackhawks earn 1st win

There's no telling where the Blackhawks' season is headed, but one thing is certain. A fourth straight loss Wednesday night and it could have gotten real ugly.

Instead things are looking up today, and a lot of the credit goes to Martin Havlat.

With the Hawks trailing 1-0 midway through the second period against the Phoenix Coyotes and the 20,522 packing the United Center becoming restless, Havlat turned in a highlight-reel goal that changed the momentum.

The Hawks went on to beat the Coyotes 4-1 for their pressure-lifting first victory of the season.

"We were waiting for three games, and we were getting better every night," Havlat said. "It's still early in the season and there was no time to panic."

Havlat's second goal of the season was dazzling.

Skating down the left side, Havlat faked defenseman David Hale out of his pants with a sweet move inside the left circle, continued to the net and lifted a backhander over goalie Ilya Bryzgalov while falling to the ice.

"We need him to make plays like that," Duncan Keith said.

"Some of us were almost laughing on the bench at how ridiculous that goal was," captain Jonathan Toews said. "Absolutely, it pumped us up and kind of eased the tension that we could score. It kind of unraveled after that and we got a few more."

Havlat admitted it was one of the prettiest goals of his career.

"I had time to create something," Havlat said. "It was one of the prettiest, but it doesn't matter how you score. After that the whole team started playing pretty good."

The Hawks also turned it up physically in the second period. Defenseman Aaron Johnson crunched Viktor Tikhonov with a hit, and Ben Eager made his presence felt during a skirmish in front of the Phoenix bench with three minutes to play in the period.

It was in the final minute of the period that the Hawks took their first lead when Patrick Sharp dug out a Keith rebound and fired it home.

"Aaron Johnson leveling that guy picked us even more, too, getting our physical game going and a lot of guys followed that up," Keith said.

The Hawks made it 3-1 just 65 seconds into the third period on Colin Fraser's first NHL goal off a feed from Dave Bolland.

Brian Campbell's first goal as a Hawk closed the scoring.

"I think progressively every game we've gotten a little better," Campbell said. "Hopefully now we can start going forward here."

Nikolai Khabibulin was razor sharp in his second start and has clearly outplayed Cristobal Huet to this point.

Khabibulin made 29 saves and was beaten only by a Peter Mueller shot in the first period with the Coyotes owning a two-man advantage.

"We had great goaltending in the first period," Hawks coach Denis Savard said.

"I think we're all going to be happy showing up to the rink (today), but we can't be satisfied by any means," Toews said. "It's just one night, but when you get momentum, who knows where it can take us?"

<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Stories</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=243141">On the defensive <span class="date">[10/16/08]</span></a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>