Predators take it right to Hawks

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Their beloved Tennessee Titans may not have come through Saturday for the sports fans here, a few thousand of whom gathered in the Sommet Center to watch the final wrenching minutes of their loss to the Baltimore Ravens on the big screen above center ice.

But what their Titans lacked their Predators surely made up for, coming out on fire early and rarely letting up, taking it to the lackluster Blackhawks all night en route to a 4-1 thumping, a loss that made for a grumpy bunch of Hawks afterward.

"It wasn't very good at all. The start was terrible - the team wasn't ready," said a frustrated coach Joel Quenneville. "Teams know they have to be ready when they play us, and (the Predators) responded with the right energy to have success, and we were on the receiving end for the first part of the game."

"We came out too slow again and it was too little, too late," said captain Jonathan Toews, who finished minus-3 with no shots on goal. "It's easy to point fingers at certain things, but we've got to be better all-around, simple as that."

Cristobal Huet got the start in net Saturday and was tested from the get-go as the Predators outshot the Hawks 15-5 in the opening 20 minutes. The only goal Huet allowed was from point-blank range by David Legwand midway through what had the chance to be a real ugly period.

"We can't work ourselves into the game," Quenneville said.

But that's just what the Hawks did, and it almost paid off.

Trailing 2-0 early in the third, Adam Burish, who just days ago scored his first goal of the season against Phoenix, added No. 2 with assists from James Wisniewski and Ben Eager.

With the Hawks swarming in the Nashville end and the momentum seemingly shifting, Radek Bonk burst that bubble with a nifty goal in which he passed to himself along the boards and swept in to beat Huet.

Pekka Rinne stopped 34 of 35 shots to give former Hawk Steve Sullivan a win in his first game back in nearly two years.

"It was great," Sullivan said. "Pekka was outstanding and we had a great start to the game - we dominated them for most of the first two periods."

The loss was the third in five games for the Hawks, who have stumbled early in January following a red-hot December.

"We've got to get back to simple, get back to what we were doing when we were winning those games," Hawks center Colin Fraser said. "Work hard, bang in the greasy ones, do whatever it takes and then go from there."

"We're still doing good things," Toews said. "I think we're just playing a little sloppy the last couple of games."

The good news for the Hawks is they won't have too much time to kick around Saturday's loss. The two teams meet again tonight at the United Center.