Hawks power way to win past Pantherss
Christmas is still two months away, but Santa Claus - dressed as 18 Florida Panthers - decided to make an early stop at the United Center on Thursday to basically gift-wrap the Blackhawks a 3-2 victory in front of 21,591 fans.
Florida found itself short-handed eight times - five of which came in the second period - and the Hawks (4-3-0) cashed in twice to climb above the .500 mark.
Brent Seabrook and Patrick Kane scored on the power play for the Hawks, and Corey Crawford made 16 saves to improve to 5-1-0 in his career against Florida.
"I thought we were solid. We had a real strong game," coach Joel Quenneville said. "We had the puck in the offensive zone a lot, didn't give them many opportunities. … The young guys on the back end looked fine. Solid 2 points."
Seabrook assisted on goals by Kane and Artem Anisimov. He logged 26 minutes of ice time and took a season-high 4 shots on goal.
Fellow defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk played a career-high 22:34 and took 3 shots on goal.
While it was a solid win, Seabrook said the team definitely missed Keith's presence.
"He's one of those special players that you notice every time that he's on the ice," Seabrook said. "But guys stepped up and did a good job."
Crawford was barely tested in the first two periods, facing just 9 shots on goal. But back-to-back penalties by Marcus Kruger and Niklas Hjalmarsson gave the Panthers a 5-on-3 power play that Jaromir Jagr cashed in on with 12:36 left in the game to trim the Hawks' lead to 3-2.
The Hawks held on from there, though, and extended their winning streak over Florida (3-3-1) to eight.
"Crow was a wall again," Seabrook said.
Bickell sits:
Bryan Bickell was a healthy scratch during the Hawks' win over Florida at the United Center. Including playoffs, Bickell hasn't scored 26 straight games and has just 6 assists over that time.
Coach Joel Quenneville wasn't pleased with the veteran's play against Columbus on Saturday.
The coach had a talk with his player during Thursday's morning skate.
"Well I don't want to get too much in our conversation," Quenneville said. "I just said I didn't mind the way he was playing. I thought his last game was ordinary.
"We've got some other guys who could come out as well, and have come out as well. You got to do what you can to get yourself back in there and get quality ice time."
Bickell was already the fourth forward in just seven games to be a healthy scratch, joining Viktor Tikhonov, Kyle Baun and Ryan Garbutt.
Slapshots:
Jonathan Toews hasn't scored a goal in the Hawks' first seven games, something he's only done twice before in his career. Toews' longest stretch to open a season without a goal was in 2008-09 when he didn't score until the Hawks' 13th game. … In six career games, Corey Crawford has a .935 save percentage against Florida. ... Jaromir Jagr now has 206 power-play goals in his career. He moved past Joe Sakic into 12th place all time in that category.