Blackhawks beat Sharks 6-5 in shootout

They might have been the toughest 2 points the Blackhawks earned all season.

Unable to put away the tenacious San Jose Sharks despite having leads of 4-1 and 5-3, the Hawks finally were able to squeeze out a 6-5 victory Wednesday night at the United Center in a shootout.

Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews tallied in the shootout, and Nikolai Khabibulin stopped Jeremy Roenick after Joe Pavelski hit the post.

"They have a lot of offensive firepower and when they turn it up, watch out," Hawks winger Andrew Ladd said. "I thought we did a good job of coming out of here with 2 points and that's the main thing."

With 89 points, the Hawks moved 2 ahead of idle Vancouver for fourth place in the Western Conference with 10 games to play, including a showdown with the Canucks on Sunday at the UC.

"We're slowly getting the confidence back in this room," Ladd said.

Ladd scored 2 goals and Martin Havlat 1 as they combined with linemate Dave Bolland for 7 points. Bolland had 3 assists.

It looked all good for the Hawks late in the third period ahead 5-3, but the Sharks scored twice in the final six minutes.

Joe Thornton tied the game with 2:08 to play when he muscled his way around defenseman Brent Seabrook and slipped the puck through Khabibulin.

Devin Setoguchi had brought the Sharks within 5-4 when Brian Campbell let the San Jose sniper get behind him to take a pass from Pavelski and beat Khabibulin in alone.

"We have to be a little more confident with a 2-goal lead with five minutes left," Hawks coach Joel Quenneville said. "We have to learn from that.

"We did a lot of good things, discarding the late couple goals against us. It's 4-1 and we're looking like it's going to be our night, but that's a very dangerous team with a lot of dangerous players."

The Sharks were playing without four regulars and stumbled out of the gate, falling behind 3-1 after 10 minutes on goals by Havlat, Dustin Byfuglien and Ladd.

"We knew they had a lot of players injured and we wanted a good start, and we did," Havlat said. "But we gave the game back and stopped playing."

Toews' 30th goal of the season at 8:27 of the second period gave the Hawks a 3-goal lead, but Ryan Vesce made it 4-2 just 15 seconds later when Khabibulin allowed a long rebound and the puck hit the skate of defenseman Niklas Hjalmarsson and trickled into the net.

The Hawks got another tough break a few minutes later when a shot by Marc-Edouard Vlasic that was going high and wide hit Seabrook and dropped into the net.

"They're kind of like Detroit; pucks come flying from all over," Quenneville said. "They throw a lot of stuff at the net."

The 1 point pulled the Sharks into a tie with the Red Wings for first place overall.

"We were lucky to get a point," Sharks coach Todd McLellan said. "I was not happy with our early play. Chicago has a similar style to us, high tempo, high scoring - just a very good team."

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